


To Love Lex Luthor

by wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas



Category: Krypton (TV 2018), Smallville
Genre: Crossover, also some side polyamory on krypton, because my shippy heart will not be denied, eventual clark kent/lex luthor, so be prepared for a very long very slow burn, this story got out of hand, warnings for descriptions of torture, when I say eventual clex I mean not until clark is of age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-24 11:29:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 44,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14354556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas/pseuds/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas
Summary: Lex Luthor gets the truth, trust, and love he deserves





	1. A Cry for Help

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely a self-indulgent fix-it fic in which love and acceptance can save even the darkest of hearts. The story starts towards the end of the episode Stray. Everything from the show is canon up to that point, except that Lex has a childhood best friend that he unofficially adopted as a sister. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd and likely OOC so I apologize in advance. All mistakes and creative liberties are my fault.

Ryan sat up suddenly in bed, woken by some unknown source. He squinted around the dark room, trying to remember what he had been dreaming about. Clark. He had dreamed that the two of them were playing basketball, laughing and horsing around. Reliving the moment from yesterday in his subconscious, clinging to the first bright spot of happiness he’d felt in a long time. He smiled a little at the memory, but his smile faded too quickly in the dim light of the moon through his window. He dreaded the moment when he would have to leave the Kents. He had never felt so safe and loved – not since his mother…

                That’s when he heard it. A sound in his head, like an itch he couldn’t scratch. He focused on it, trying to figure out what it was.

                “Please,” a faint female voice called. “Help me.”

                Ryan reacted without thinking, flinging off the warm comforter of Clark’s bed before running toward the barn where his newfound friend was sleeping. He tiptoed quickly and quietly down the stairs, out the front door, and across the field toward the one person he knew would be able to help.

                “Clark! Clark, wake up!” His voice was hushed, but urgent and loud enough to stir the older boy from sleep.

                “Ryan?” Clark mumbled, confused and still half-asleep. “What’s wrong?” He blinked in the dim light, looking around at the boy he had already started to think of as a brother, despite barely knowing him for twenty-four hours. At the desperate look on Ryan’s face, Clark was instantly awake.

                “Ryan?” he asked again.

                “Clark,” Ryan urged, grabbing his hand and trying valiantly to tug the heavy boy out of bed, “There’s a girl in the woods. She’s hurt. You need to save her!”

                “Woah, woah slow down,” Clark said, though he allowed himself to be pulled into a sitting position. “What girl? Where? How do you know?”

                “I heard her. In my head. Clark, she’s in trouble.” Ryan’s eyes were wide and pleading.

                Clark stared at him for a second, processing, before nodding. “Okay. Okay. Let me get my shoes.”

                Seconds later Clark was speeding toward the forest, Ryan in his arms dictating where he should go. It was like a frustrating game of hot and cold since Ryan didn’t know exactly where the girl was, only that the voice got louder the closer they got.

                “There!” Ryan suddenly shouted after several harrowing minutes of frantic search. “She’s in a lot of pain,” he informed Clark somberly.

                Clark gently set Ryan down by a tree a few yards away from where Ryan was pointing, making him promise to stay put while he went to investigate.

                Sure enough, right where Ryan had pointed a young woman lay bloody and unmoving. Clark rushed to her side, using his x-ray vision to check her injuries. He counted three broken ribs, two more fractured, and a fractured femur, not counting all the contusions covering her whole body. Her wrists were bleeding from what had obviously been ropes or shackles. She didn’t look more than sixteen. Gingerly, he picked her up, concerned by her shallow breathing, and carried her back to where Ryan was waiting.

                “Thank you.” The voice was still weak, even this close, but Ryan heard it loud and clear.

                “She says ‘thank you’,” Ryan dutifully relayed.

                “I can’t carry you both. I should have thought this through,” Clark chastised himself. “And I don’t have my cellphone.”

                “What if I climbed on your back?” Ryan offered. As much as he wanted to be as self-sacrificing as Clark, he really didn’t want to be left alone in the forest at night. He also knew that Clark wouldn’t want that either.

                Clark paused, considering. “I guess if I go slow and you hold on really, really tight…”

                Ryan nodded seriously, knowing that if Clark went at full speed he would never have the strength to hold on.

                “Okay, hop on,” Clark instructed. He knelt down on one knee, careful not to jostle the broken girl in his arms. Ryan climbed on, his arms and legs wrapping as tightly as they could around Clark, whose body felt more like steel than flesh and blood.

                Running at a fraction of his speed, though still faster than any normal human not carrying two other people, he carefully made his way back to the hospital. Ryan clung to him like a spider-monkey, his grip so tight it would have severely restricted his air if Clark were human.

                They finally made it to the bright lights of the hospital where Clark slowed and let Ryan down. Ryan’s limbs were shaking slightly from the exertion of holding on so tightly, but other than that he looked none the worse for wear.

                “Doctor! We need a doctor!” Clark shouted once they breached the doors of the emergency entrance. The nurse at the front desk saw the unconscious girl in his arms and leapt into action, calling for someone to get a stretcher, on which Clark gently placed her before stepping back to let the doctors do their job. Everyone seemed to be shouting at each other, calling out instructions that Clark barely listened to. He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl’s face. She was so young, no older than him, and yet it looked like someone had tortured her. Who could do that to a child? Why would they even want to? Who was this girl?

                She was rushed into surgery to address the internal damage that had been done to some of her organs. Clark hadn’t even thought to check for that, so focused on her broken bones and bloody, bruised skin. What if he had hurt her worse by carrying her here? Guilt filled him, but what other choice had he had?

                The first chance he got, Clark phoned his parents. He gave them the short version of events, promising to fill them in on the details once they arrived. Clark’s head was spinning with unanswered questions. How had she called out to Ryan? Was it chance that he had heard her or did she specifically reach out to him? What if it had been a trap? He was constantly rushing headfirst into danger, but this time it had involved Ryan. Ryan, who had seen more than enough danger in his young life. Clark should have found a way to leave Ryan behind while he went to look for the girl. He knew rationally that there was no way he would have found her so quickly if Ryan hadn’t been there guiding him, but that didn’t stop the guilt from eating him from the inside out.

                To make matters worse, the police arrived not long after he hung up the phone with his parents and Clark was left to field awkward questions about how they had found the mystery girl and what exactly they had been doing out in the woods at half past one in the morning.

                Finally, though it hadn’t been more than twenty minutes, Jonathan and Martha arrived. They rushed to envelop both boys in a tight hug.

                “What happened, son?” Jonathan asked as he stepped back, glancing over at the police who were now questioning some of the nurses and were thankfully out of earshot.

                “She – she called out to me,” Ryan answered, though the question had not been directed at him.

                “Who did, sweetheart?” Martha asked, her tone ever-motherly, one arm cast protectively around the young boy’s shoulders.

                “The girl from the woods. She called out to me to help her.” Jonathan and Martha exchanged a charged glance.

                “I’m sorry, mom, dad. We didn’t have time to wake you. Ryan said she was dying.”

                “It’s okay, Clark. I’m just glad you’re both safe,” Jonathan assured him, pulling him in for another hug. Clark would never get over his parents’ boundless trust and confidence in him. He hugged his father back tightly.

                The police came over to talk to them again, asking more questions about the incident. Had they seen anyone else in the woods? No. Did they know who she was? No. Did they know why she had a backpack full of lead boxes locked by fingerprint identification? Definitely not, though that raised another round of intriguing questions in Clark’s mind. It concerned his parents as well, since their son had only recently discovered that not only did he have x-ray vision, but that it was useless on lead. It raised suspicions in their minds that perhaps this girl was not what she seemed at first glance. Finally, realizing they weren’t going to get any leads from either Clark or Ryan, the police left, leaving instructions for the hospital staff to keep them updated on the girl’s condition.

                The four of them settled into the waiting room chairs, silently agreeing that they wouldn’t leave until they knew the girl was okay. Jonathan and Martha tipped their heads together and were whispering theories to each other, trying to figure out how the girl had reached out to Ryan and what the lead boxes could mean. Clark blocked them out, his mind going into overdrive again. He hadn’t even thought to check the rest of the woods for the person responsible. It made him itch to think they could have been out there, watching. He wanted to jump out of his seat and go search, to grab the perpetrator by the throat and mimic the girl’s injuries on a new canvas. The violence of his own thoughts alarmed him, but at the same time he couldn’t shake the righteous vengeance he felt consuming his bones like wildfire. It was killing him to just sit there, waiting, not being able to do anything. Finally, as the sun began to spill its light through the large waiting room windows, he stood up and started to pace.

                “Clark, honey, why don’t you sit down?” his mother urged soothingly after several minutes. Clark knew his pacing was starting to make them anxious but he couldn’t help it. The agitation under his skin was unbearable. But the look on his mother’s face was enough to make him slump into the nearest chair with a huff. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply.

                “Clark, I know you’re worried but I’m sure she’ll be okay. You did the right thing.” His father always knew the right thing to say, soothing Clark’s anxieties as though he had Ryan’s uncanny ability to read minds.

                Clark smiled despite himself. It was a small one, but it was a smile nonetheless and the sight of it eased some of his parents’ anxiousness. He was about to respond, but a familiar voice spoke behind him, causing Clark to spin around in his chair.

                “I heard you played hero again, Clark,” Lex joked lightly, his voice teasing, despite the surreptitious glance he cast over Clark’s body when he stood up to greet his friend, checking him for possible injuries. “I came to make sure you were okay.”

                “Yeah, I’m okay,” Clark assured him. “I just hope I got there in time.” He looked over at the double doors leading to the operating room for the hundredth time, not hiding his riotous emotions.

                “I’m sure you did,” Lex asserted confidently, his hand reaching out almost unconsciously to grip his best friend’s shoulder in reassurance. “You may never be anywhere else on time, but when it comes to saving people you have an impeccable sense of timing.”

                There was meaning beneath his words – there always was – but Clark couldn’t help but smile. He shrugged sheepishly, going to his usual answer in this situation, “I’m just lucky, I guess.”

                Lex just looked at him with that indecipherable expression he always had whenever Clark made up some lie to cover up how close Lex got to finding out the truth. It made Clark feel like Lex knew more than he let on, but Clark found that he cared less and less about keeping it from him. It had only been a couple months since he’d known the younger Luthor, but he was quite possibly the best friend he’d ever had. Not that he’d tell Pete or Chloe that of course.

                “Do the police have any information?” Lex asked, mercifully breaking the tense eye contact between them and looking over at Jonathan and Martha. “Do they know who she is?”

                Jonathan shook his head, “No. We don’t know anything at this point.” Jonathan had watched the interaction between his son and Lex, not knowing what to do with the complexities he saw there. Part of him wanted to hold onto his gut feeling that all Luthors were duplicitous and evil, but he had found himself slowly starting to see the differences between Lex and Lionel despite his best efforts to conflate the two as a singular enemy. He had watched Lex walk into that fertilizer plant, defenseless, and offer himself in return for the students’ safety. Jonathan didn’t have as much faith as his son that Lex was clueless about Level 3 and all the goings-on at LuthorCorp, but there was something to be said for that kind of bravery and self-sacrifice, the kind he would never expect to see from Lionel Luthor. Perhaps his wife and son were right; Lex was his own man and even the mistakes he’d made were his own, not his father’s. Seeing the barely hidden concern in Lex’s eyes as he not-so-subtly checked Clark for injuries only served to further prove that Lex was more human than his father could ever be.

                “I’m sure the police are doing everything they can,” Martha said placatingly, “but she had no identification and they have nothing to go on.”

                “Another Smallville mystery then,” Lex said, a small smirk on his lips. The expression on his face was purposefully nonchalant, a carefully crafted mask of indifference that may work on most people, but Clark could see the curiosity in his eyes, and he knew Lex wasn’t going to let this go any more than he let any of Smallville’s oddities go uninvestigated.

                  Just then, the double doors swung open and a haggard, tired looking doctor stepped out. Everyone moved forward at the same time, eager to know how the surgery had gone.

                “Well, it was a long surgery,” the doctor informed them unnecessarily – they had all counted the minutes religiously and knew exactly how long it had taken, “but she’s alive.” There was a collective sigh of relief. “Her injuries were extensive. We’re going to monitor her for the next twenty-four hours to make sure there are no further complications and run some more blood tests. For now, she’s still under anesthesia and it will be about half an hour before she wakes up from that. Even then, she’s going to be on heavy pain medication, so she may still be asleep for some time.”

                “Can we see her?” Ryan asked.

                “Normally,” the doctor replied slowly, falling victim to Ryan’s innocent, pleading stare, “I’d say only family is allowed to see her, but in this case, I think I’ll allow it.”

                The nurse would only allow half of them to go in at a time, so Jonathan and Martha stayed behind to let the rest of them go in first. Lex offered to hang back, but Clark could see how badly he wanted to find out more about the mystery girl and he waved for Lex to join them.

                Upon entering, Clark was struck yet again by the girl’s youth. She looked so fragile and small lying in that hospital bed, her dark hair matted and filthy, her face bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition. She was covered by a blanket, but Clark remembered the tattered, foreign clothes she’d been wearing, the broken bones, the bruises visible even on her dark skin. He concentrated, using his x-ray vision to examine her injuries more thoroughly than he had the first time. There were sutures on her lungs where one of her broken ribs had punctured it and more sutures lower where the doctors had had to go in and stop the internal bleeding. Again, the urge for vengeance threatened to consume him. For a moment, he saw red, until a sharp intake of breath behind him brought him back to the present.

                “Lex? What is it?” Clark asked, turning to see his friend frozen in place, eyes wide and unblinking. He was staring at the girl, taking in the bruises on her face and the bandages on her wrist. Clark knew how he felt. The injuries were hard to look at, even without x-ray vision.

                “You know her. Don’t you?” It wasn’t until Ryan’s words registered that Clark realized that Lex wasn’t staring at the girl with horror, but rather with recognition.

                “Lex? Do you know her?” Clark was even more confused now. This girl was so full of mysteries she made his own life of secrecy look like an open book.

                “Yeah,” Lex breathed, finally moving slowly, shakily, toward the bed. He looked like he was about to collapse any second so Clark dragged over a chair and eased Lex into it. Lex didn’t even protest, not taking his eyes off the girl in the bed.

                “Rey.” Lex’s voice sounded shattered, like a glass pane hit full force by a semi. “Oh, God. Rey.”

                Clark was floored. Was Lex, the unshakeable billionaire who always played it so close to the vest his emotions might as well have been locked in a lead vault, crying?

                “Rey?” Clark asked softly, kneeling next to Lex and looking up at his face. “Is that her name? Who is she?” He looked back at the girl, Rey, in bewilderment.

                “She’s my sister.” Clark glanced between Lex and Rey, not understanding. He looked at Lex’s pale, delicate skin, then Rey’s dark, almost midnight black skin.

                “Lex,” he said slowly, “you said you didn’t have any siblings.”

                “Not by blood,” Lex answered absently, barely glancing down at Clark, “but in every other way, every way that counts, she’s my sister.”


	2. Friends Forever

_When they first met, she was six and he was seven. Lex remembered it as if it were yesterday. They were both being forced to sit through another boring social niceties meeting between rich sycophants trying to one up each other on the game of who-cares-about-their-child’s-education-more? Lex had sighed, leaning back in his uncomfortable, decorative chair. His mess of red hair, which his mother was constantly trying to tame, kept falling into his eyes and he tried in vain to push it back. He glanced around the room, tuning out the droning voices talking about this year’s budget and what exciting opportunities to learn there would be for the students at Excelsior Academy. The room was full of expensive suits and designer dresses, worn by hollow people with hidden agendas behind fake smiles. Even at seven years old Lex could see right through them._

_The speaker finally ended their speech and called, surprise, surprise, Lionel Luthor to the stage to speak. Lionel took to the limelight like a fish to water and used the opportunity to wax poetic about his ‘deep appreciation for the academy and everything it had done for its students and their families’. He went on to discuss the school’s curriculum, highlighting the things he saw as important, dismissing those he did not, before finally finishing by announcing that he would be donating a new library to the school, complete with an expanded history section. The crowd applauded politely and Lex only sighed, his mother’s gentle hand smoothing his hair the only thing keeping him from escaping to the bathroom to get away from watching his father soak up the attention like a sponge. Still, he couldn’t help a furtive glance toward the door, wondering how long he could get away for without anyone becoming suspicious. That’s when he saw her. She was leaning against the wall by the door, separated from the rest of the crowd, her expression unreadable. Anyone else might think she was just bored, but Lex could see that she was scanning the crowd carefully, watching their reactions and taking silent notes. The kind of thing no child should know how to do. The kind of thing Lex had already learned to do without thinking._

_She was wearing a golden dress which complemented her dark complexion perfectly. It was a sophisticated design, far too adult for a child to have chosen. The diamonds around her neck looked heavy, and from the way she fidgeted with them it was obvious she wasn’t used to wearing them. She had matching diamonds in her ears, half hidden by her long dark hair._

_Suddenly the girl made eye contact with him, catching him staring at her. He quickly looked away, hoping she wouldn’t think he was being rude. His mother had always told him not to stare, but he was intrigued by her. She didn’t seem to fit in with this crowd, despite her outfit. He didn’t recognize her, which was odd since everyone in here was someone he had known since birth. She must be a new student._

_He snuck another peek at her, only to find her still staring at him. She smiled mischievously before beckoning subtly at him to follow her. She slipped out the door while another parent, Mrs. Queen, took the stage, and disappeared._

_“I’ll be right back,” he muttered to his mother, who only smiled at him and told him not to take too long. She knew he hated these events and didn’t hold it against him that he wanted a moment of reprieve._

_He had to step over several people to get out of the room, making his escape a lot less inconspicuous, but as soon as he made his way through the ornate doors into the hallway he felt like he could finally breathe. The air in there had felt stifling and he had almost used his inhaler twice. He looked around, trying to spot the girl in the golden dress._

_“Come on, slow poke!” came her teasing voice, and he spun around to see her head poking around the corner of an adjacent hallway. Her laughter guided him steadily as he ran after her, twisting and turning through the maze which was Excelsior Academy. He had to pause once to take a deep breath from his inhaler, not used to running, but he finally caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs that led to the roof. She grabbed his hand and tugged, urging him to follow her up the stairs._

_He felt apprehensive, knowing that if they got caught going up to the roof his father would be furious, but the mystery girl radiated so much joy that he couldn’t find it in him to protest. Plus, her grip on his hand was surprisingly strong._

_“Almost there,” she said as they neared the top. She pushed open the door, which Lex had assumed would be locked, and suddenly they were outside. The September sun shone brightly down on them and a crisp breeze made Lex inhale deeply. It smelled like fall. Cool, fresh, with just a hint of rotting leaves. The girl laughed again, bright as the sunshine, and tugged him forward._

_“Come on, I wanna show you something.”_

_He followed her to the middle of the roof, where she promptly laid down on her back, pulling on his hand until he was on his back next to her._

_“What did you want to show me?” Lex asked, confused._

_“The clouds,” she said, the same way some girls would say ‘duh’. “Aren’t they beautiful?”_

_Lex looked up at the sky. He supposed the clouds were beautiful, but he didn’t know why she had dragged him all the way up here to see them. He had seen clouds before._

_“My name’s Rey,” she said. “That meeting was really boring. I just wanted to get out of there.”_

_“I’m Lex,” he replied, glad to finally know the mystery girl’s name. “I wanted to get out of there too.”_

_“I saw that. You’re not very good at hiding how you feel.”_

_“I know,” Lex said ruefully. His father was constantly telling him that emotions were a weakness. “I’m trying to get better at it.”_

_“Why?” The genuine curiosity in her voice caused him to turn and look at her. She was on her side now, looking at him instead of the clouds._

_“My father says emotions make you vulnerable." He paused, knowing that most kids his age didn't use words like 'vulnerable'. "That’s a bad thing.”_

_“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” she told him. “Actually, I think it’s a very good thing.”_

_“Well, you don’t know my father.”_

_“No. But I’d like to know you." Her candid way of speaking was foreign to him. "I think you and I are going to be best friends forever.”_

_Lex looked at her brown, earnest eyes. He saw more sincerity there than he’d ever seen from anyone, even his mother. He decided he believed her and really hoped that they_ would _be friends forever._


	3. Actions and Consequences

Lex was still staring at Rey as if the Holy Grail had suddenly landed in his lap. Amazed, confused, awestruck, but mostly relieved.

                “I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “She looks the same age as when she left. How is that possible?”

                Clark had no answer for that. It seems he had no answers for anything when it came to this mysterious Rey.

                “I thought she was dead,” Lex continued, not seeming to care that Clark hadn’t answered. “I had people looking for her for years. For years, Clark,” he said, finally looking him in the eyes. “I never thought I’d see her again.”

                “What happened?”

                “I don’t know,” Lex responded honestly, looking back at Rey. “She told me she had to go away for a while, but then she just…never came back. At first, I thought she’d left me,” _like everyone else_ , “but then there were these letters…”

                “Letters?” Clark prompted.

                “I kept finding them everywhere I went, as if she knew where I’d be. She promised in every single one that she was going to come back." He paused. "But then the letters just...stopped. No one could tell me where she’d gone. Even the best private investigators found nothing. It was like she just vanished.”

                “Did she go away a lot? I mean, was it normal for her to disappear like that?”

                “She used to leave for a few days or sometimes weeks, but never that long. When the letters stopped, I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t know it was this bad.” His slender, pale hand reached out to cover hers with a tenderness that made Clark’s heart ache. Clearly Lex cared about her a lot. Which only renewed his resolve to find whoever was responsible and bring them to justice.

                “We’ll find who did this, Lex,” Clark promised fiercely. Lex looked up to meet his eyes. Clark saw the same determination and anger there that he felt.

                “Um, Clark?” Ryan said hesitantly. Clark jumped. He had almost forgotten Ryan was in the room he'd been so quiet.

                “What’s wrong?” Ryan was looking distressed again and Clark only hoped it wasn’t another girl who needed saving. His heart couldn’t take seeing another person in so much pain.

                “Can I talk to you outside?” Ryan glanced at Rey then back at Clark pointedly. Okay so not another girl in distress. Ryan must have read something important in Rey’s mind.

                Lex looked between them, trying to interpret their silent conversation and failing. Clark saw his confusion and suppressed a sigh. Yet another secret he was keeping from his best friend. All these secrets were starting to weigh heavily on his heart and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand it. Not long too long ago he had yelled at Lex for pursuing the mystery that was the accident on the bridge, using his broken ribs as evidence against Lex’s theory that he had hit him with his car. It wasn’t fair that he had to keep the biggest part of himself a secret from everyone he cared about. Chloe, Pete, Lana, Lex – no one knew who he truly was. Most of the time he could swallow down the bitterness of that, but this time he was finding it difficult. He was about to tell Ryan that they could step outside and talk when a sudden decision came to him.

                “It’s okay, Ryan,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt. “We can trust Lex.” He pushed down the fear at what his father would say about this decision and turned to face his friend, the person he trusted most besides his parents. He couldn’t find it in him to regret his choice.

                Ryan looked apprehensive, but Lex just stared at Clark, his eyes shining. Lex wasn’t used to being trusted, and he certainly didn’t expect it from the son of a man who hated his father so vehemently, but Clark just met his gaze evenly, proving silently that he meant what he said. Lex felt the momentousness of the gesture and was deeply humbled. He blinked away the sudden moisture in his eyes and cleared his throat, finally looking away from the confidence in Clark’s eyes.

                “She’s trapped in a nightmare,” Ryan said, apparently having decided that if Clark trusted Lex, he could too. “I think it’s a memory of what happened to her.”

                Lex was pulled out of his emotions by a startling realization. “You can read her mind?” He was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his poker face.

                Ryan looked at Clark, who only nodded and urged him to continue.

                “Yes.”

                Lex sat back in his chair, stunned for the second time today. Could Ryan read his mind too?

                “Yes,” Ryan said again, this time with a hint of a smile.

                Lex’s brain raced with the implications of that. Did Ryan know all of his secrets? Could he read Clark’s mind? God, what Lex wouldn’t give to be able to read Clark’s mind just once, just to know…

                “No, no, and you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

                “Okay, that’s getting a little creepy.” Lex shook his head, one hand smoothing over his bare skull. This was…too much information to process. Wait, why couldn’t Ryan read Clark’s mind? Was it selective? How did it work? His scientific mind started coming up with theories, casting them aside almost as soon as he thought of them. His curiosity was ravenous and this was the biggest scientific revelation he’d ever had. Telepathy. What a world.

                “No, it’s not selective. I can read everyone’s mind except Clark’s, but only what they’re thinking of at that moment. I don’t know why I can do it, I just can.” He said the last bit with a shrug.

                Lex nodded as if that made perfect sense, which it decidedly did not. Maybe he was dreaming. This day did not feel real. Maybe he’d wake up in bed in Metropolis to find out that the past few months had been a dream and nothing strange ever happened in Smallville, let alone telepathic kids and not-sisters who come back from the dead.

                “Lex,” Clark said worriedly, his hands hovering over Lex’s shoulders, “are you okay?”

                “Yeah, I’m just dandy, Clark, thanks for asking.” Lex couldn’t help the sarcastic response – it was a knee-jerk reaction in times like these. Not that he’d ever had a moment quite like this before.

                “He’s processing. Just give him a minute,” Ryan assured Clark. Lex felt a little perturbed by the fact that Ryan _knew what he was thinking_ , but at the same time, he was grateful because yes, he did need a minute to process this.

                Clark rocked back on his heels, still crouched by Lex’s chair as if worried he would faint and fall out of it. Lex would have scoffed at his friend’s concern at any other time but now, now he was just glad for his friend’s support. He knew he wasn’t going to faint; Lex had had his fair share of bombshell information being dropped on him by his father. He knew how to calm himself down. He took several deep breaths, breathing out longer than he breathed in, trying to calm his racing heart. Finally, his brain slowed to a comprehensible speed and he could parse everything he just discovered. Rey was alive. She was safe, in Smallville, where Clark, ever the small town hero, had rescued her. The boy Clark’s mother had found yesterday and had basically already adopted was telepathic and could read his mind, but didn’t know all of his secrets. He breathed in. Breathed out. He could deal with this.

                “Okay, I’m okay,” he finally said. Then Ryan’s words caught up with him. “Wait, did you say she was remembering what happened to her?” Lex’s attention was fully focused again on the pressing issue of Rey’s current condition. If Ryan’s ability could somehow tell him who was responsible for this, Lex could go after them, make them pay for what they’d done.

                “Yeah, but I don’t know where she is or who’s keeping her.” His tone was apologetic. “It’s really dark. And cold." Ryan concentrated. For some reason, it was harder to read Rey's mind that it was most people's. "She’s hanging from the ceiling by her wrists. She’s calling out to you, Lex.”

                Lex winced at that. Rey had called out to him but he hadn’t been able to find her, let alone save her from whatever happened to her. Soul-crushing guilt filled him and he hated himself for not being there, for being angry with her for not coming back when in actuality, she had needed him.

                “I’m so sorry, Rey,” he whispered, squeezing her hand gently. He could have imagined it, but he almost felt her squeeze back, just slightly.

                “What else can you tell us about the memory, Ryan?” Clark prodded. He wanted the information about who did this almost as badly as Lex did. Though while Lex would likely use his money and influence to find those responsible and then possibly kill them for what they’d done, Clark would go after them himself.

                “She’s…she’s calling out for other people now. Trying to get someone to hear her.”

                “What other people?” Lex was curious. Rey had never really had too many other friends besides him, and no one else she was as close to.

                Ryan concentrated harder. It was like she was trying to block him out, but failing. The images came through scattered and faint, like trying to watch a movie from the other end of a tunnel. He could see her struggling against her bonds, lifting herself up and yanking on the metal chains, only to deepen the wounds on her wrists and causing blood to flow thick and red down her arms. She screamed for someone named Adam, then she tried yelling the name Lyta. When no one came to rescue her, she finally called out for Seg, a man that Ryan could tell meant a lot to her, though he couldn’t get any more information than that.

                “Adam. A woman named Lyta. Seg,” Ryan relayed the names slowly. “She’s not screaming any more, but I don’t know how to repeat what she’s saying. It’s not English.”

                “Try,” Lex encouraged. He knew enough languages that even if the kid butchered the pronunciation there was a chance he’d recognize enough to get the gist.

                Ryan did as Lex asked, but Lex didn’t recognize any of the words. He didn’t even know what language it could be, or even what branch of language it came from.

                The words may have meant nothing to Lex, but to Clark they were like a half buried memory, something he should remember but couldn’t. They reminded him of the first time he had seen the symbols on the strange device his father had given him, the one he had found in the space ship. He didn’t know how, but he knew that whatever language Ryan had just spoken it was the language of his birth parents. The language of his people.

 “It means, ‘I’ll come home to you, little bird’.” Ryan looked at Clark, his eyebrows drawn together, but Clark could only look back helplessly, just as much at a loss for answers as he was.

                Lex had thought he was emotionally spent for the day, but apparently the surprises would not stop coming. He didn’t even have time to think about how or why Clark knew the language Ryan had spoken because he was caught on the translation itself.

                “That was her nickname for me, after the meteor strike. She said my bald head made me look like a baby bird.” If nothing else had confirmed that one, Ryan really was psychic and two, Rey really was alive, this proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lex felt a painful wave of grief wash over him. Even through all that suffering, Rey had held on to her promise that she would come back to him. It made his heart ache and his eyes sting with tears, though he refused to let them shed.

                Ryan approached him cautiously, like he was a frightened animal Ryan was afraid to spook, and slowly wrapped his arms around him. Lex stiffened automatically at the embrace, not one for physical contact with anyone besides a select few, but soon found himself relaxing into the hug, letting the young boy comfort him.

                “Is she still having the nightmare?” he asked quietly, hoping beyond hope that the answer would be no. He couldn’t bear to think that even though she was home, she was still _there_ , wherever ‘there’ was, calling out to someone who could do nothing to save her.

                “No,” Ryan said, still hugging Lex tightly. “The medicine kicked in, I think.”

                “Good.”

                A knock came at the door. Clark looked up and saw his parents at the window, looking on the scene with questions in their eyes. He got up and let them in, checking first that no nurses were around to tell them they couldn’t all be in there at the same time.

                “Lex knows her,” Clark said, answering their unspoken question. At least in part. He wasn’t ready to tell them about his decision to trust Lex with Ryan’s secret just yet. Or worse, his decision to tell Lex his own eventually.

                “You do?” Jonathan asked incredulously, addressing Lex, who was still biting back tears, forcing his face into its usual calm, detached facade. “We have to tell the police.”

                “Dad, he’s still getting over the shock. Give him a minute.”

                “It’s okay, Clark. I was planning to tell them, Mr. Kent, but like Clark said, this has been a little…much.” Lex had looked into Jonathan’s eyes as he spoke, letting him see the truth of his words in his eyes, but he turned back to Rey almost before he finished uttering the last word. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her for more than a few seconds at a time, as though afraid she would disappear again if he did.

                Jonathan nodded, looking slightly chastised, though that was more likely due to the look his wife had given him than Lex’s words. “Of course. I just know the police are searching for answers and it seems you can shed some light on the situation.”

                “Not as much as I’d like,” Lex admitted. “I have no idea what happened to her. She left five years ago and I haven’t heard from her in over two. I never thought I’d see her again.”

                “Was she – is she an ex-girlfriend?” Jonathan asked, for once not accusatory, but rather curious.

                “He said she’s like a sister to him,” Clark offered when Lex’s only response seemed a mixture of silent revulsion and amusement at the idea of dating Rey.

                “Oh. I didn’t mean to assume, I can just see that you obviously care about her.” Jonathan looked a little awkward, and Clark could tell that he was just as thrown by Lex’s display of emotion as he was. Clark secretly thought it was a good thing that his father was seeing Lex as a human being rather than just as a corporate drone sent by his evil father to spy on and ruin the lives of everyone in Smallville.

                Martha stepped forward and took the place of Ryan, who had stepped back when the two of them entered the room, and wrapped her arms around Lex in a motherly hug. “I’m sorry you have to see your friend like this, honey. I’m sure the police will find whoever did this. She seems like a fighter; I’m sure she’ll pull through.”

                Lex blinked back tears yet again. He was seriously in danger of losing all his carefully won composure. So many emotions in one day had him spinning and he hated to admit he was afraid of the landing. Having Martha Kent hug him like this, comforting him, reminded him entirely too much of his own mother and it was a bittersweet ache that blossomed in his bones and made him feel weak and exhausted, like he should just give in and sob until he finally fell asleep.

                _“I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Actually, I think that’s a very good thing.”_

The memory came to him unbidden and suddenly Lex couldn’t fight it any more. Tears began to fall slowly down his face as he stared at his not-sister and willed her to be alright. Willed her to be stronger than him. Willed her to wake up and come back to him.

                “It’s okay, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’ve got you,” Martha whispered, hugging him tighter. He reached his hands up and clutched her arms, letting out all the grief he’d felt over the past five years since Rey had left, all the grief over seeing her like this, so weak and wounded, when she had only ever been light and strength. Then he had more arms around him as Ryan, Clark, and finally Jonathan joined the hug. Lex had never felt so supported, so loved and comforted, in his whole life. Even his mother was only one person and couldn’t compare to the full force of a Kent family hug.

                After a long moment they broke apart. Lex dried his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, trying to drown out his father’s voice in his head calling him weak for crying, calling him a failure. His father wasn’t here; he couldn’t use this moment of vulnerability against him and he knew the Kents never would. The only problem was that now he felt absolutely drained. He felt like he could sleep for a million years, but he wanted to be here when Rey woke up. He couldn’t bear to leave her now, even just to unconsciousness – not when he just got her back.

                But it seemed like Martha Kent had other ideas. “Come on. You need to rest.” Lex opened his mouth to protest, but Martha cut him off. “Don’t argue with me, Lex Luthor. You’re coming home with us and getting some sleep.” Her tone left no room for argument and Lex was helpless in the face of Martha 'mama-bear' Kent. “You can come back tomorrow and wait for her to wake up. She’ll be fine here until then, I promise. Up you get.” With that she nearly single-handedly hauled him to his feet and guided him to the door. Clark barely suppressed a snicker at the sight of Lex being manhandled by his mother. Oddly enough, that was the moment that Clark knew everything was going to be okay.

                Back at the farm, Martha made up the couch for Lex, shooing Ryan up to Clark’s room and Clark to the loft so they all could get some rest. “A good few hours rest followed by a good breakfast are what this family needs right now. And if I hear so much as a sound from any of you, I will not hesitate to sedate you and _make you_ rest.”

                Clark and Ryan hastened to comply, knowing that her threat was not an idle one. Even Lex obeyed quietly, thanking her in a whisper as she started to walk away.

                “You’re welcome, Lex,” she replied softly and turned out the light.

                The next morning – or was it afternoon? – Lex stirred, trying to figure out where he was. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation to wake up in an unknown location, but it hadn’t happened in quite a while. The couch beneath him was comfortable and the blankets soft and warm. The sunlight shining through the window was bright, hurting his eyes. He squinted at the brightness and turned away. He was at the Kents’, Rey was in the hospital, Ryan was a telepath. Yesterday’s events flooded back and he flushed with embarrassment at the fact that he had cried in front of the Kents. At the same time, he felt a different kind of warmness spread through his body, one that was much lighter and not coated in shame. It felt a lot like…happiness. He remembered the arms around him as he cried, the love he’d felt then, and it almost felt like it healed something in him he didn’t realize needed healing. Between Rey’s strange return and finding himself in the Kents’ good graces, Lex felt like life might just start going his way.

                “Oh, Lex! You’re awake! Good, I have breakfast made. I was just about to go get Clark.” Martha’s voice was a welcome sound and Lex smiled. It was a genuine smile and he widened it just because he liked the feeling.

                “Good morning, Mrs. Kent. I can go get him if you want.”

                “That would be wonderful. Thank you. And you can call me Martha, Lex.”

                Lex nodded, pleased, though he was sure it would take some getting used to. “Okay. Martha it is.” He smiled again, beaming at her. She returned his smile, reminding him of another sunshine smile, one he’d get to see again soon, he was sure. Rey was going to wake up. He had never been an optimist, but for once he didn’t think his positive thinking was misplaced.

                Clark was still asleep when Lex walked up to the loft. He was sprawled on his back on the couch, a blanket half covering his body, half on the floor from moving around in his sleep. He looked so young while he slept, so innocent, that for a second Lex just stared, unable to put together the strong, goofy farm boy with the angel asleep in front of him. Lex shook his head to rid himself of that thought. He must still be feeling a little emotional from yesterday.

                Suddenly, an evil thought occurred to him. With a wild leap, Lex pounced on his friend, shouting incoherently. It was a childish move, but he was in a childish mood, filled with foreign happiness that made him lightheaded and maybe a little foolish. He had expected Clark to wake up with a jolt and a noise of protest, maybe playfully shove him off, but instead he found himself pinned to the floor with Clark hovering above him faster than Lex could blink. Clark looked terrifyingly fierce, then confused, then afraid all in the span of seconds. Then he was off Lex and practically on the other side of the room.

                “I’m sorry, Lex, oh god I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you? Are you okay?” Clark was babbling, his hands fluttering as he struggled between wanting to get close enough to make sure Lex was okay and needing to stay far enough away that he didn’t hurt him or freak him out. Clark cursed himself silently. How could he have done that? He could have seriously hurt Lex. Just because he’d been asleep, dreaming of exacting revenge on Rey's torturers, didn’t mean that he had the right to start throwing people to the floor.

                Lex sat up, checking himself subtly for injury. Finding none, he held up his hands placatingly to Clark. “It’s okay, I’m okay. It’s my fault. Stupid idea. I don’t know what came over me.” His bubble of happiness had been burst in the wake of the shock of finding himself on the floor, unable to move beneath the weight of Clark’s body and the heavier weight of the ferocity in his eyes. He had never seen that look on Clark’s face before, had never thought him capable, but it had been there. He didn’t imagine it.

                Clark visibly relaxed when he realized Lex really was okay, but he still didn’t get any closer.

                “I could have hurt you, Lex.” There was fear in his voice and Lex heard it, felt it reflected in the thundering of his own heart. But he didn’t understand Clark’s reaction. It had been an accident, an accident he had caused, and yet Clark looked like the guilty one. The weight of the world was back on his shoulders and the innocence he had seen while Clark slept was gone. His distress made Lex want to reach out and comfort him the way he had been comforted yesterday, but he resisted and settled for turning the tables.

                “I’m the one that jumped on you. Are you sure I’m not the one who hurt you?”

                Clark almost laughed at that. “No, no you didn’t hurt me. Just startled me was all.”

                “Fast reflexes you have there, farm boy. If I had those at certain points in my life I might have avoided a good deal of pain,” Lex said, half joking. Only half because honestly, it was true; reflexes like that could have gotten him out of some sticky situations in the past, some caused by his father, others his own doing.

                Clark didn’t know what to do with that information so he just rubbed the back of his neck and forced his heart to calm down. “Yeah well, gotta have strong reflexes sometimes working on a farm.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, horses and cows had a tendency to kick suddenly and without warning, but Clark had only yesterday decided he was going to trust Lex and the half-truth didn’t sit well with him. Seeing how emotionally distraught Lex was yesterday though meant that he’d also made the decision to wait for a better time to tell his best friend that he was an alien from outer space with supernatural abilities. That might be a little too much for any person to handle at one time.

                “I guess so,” Lex laughed. “Help me up?”

                Clark covered the distance between them in two strides and extended a hand to help Lex up off the floor. Clark still felt badly about being the cause of Lex being on the floor in the first place, but worst of all was the flash of fear he’d seen in his friend’s eyes. It made him wonder about Lex’s reaction to finding out Clark’s secret. Would he be afraid of him? Would he still want to be friends with him, even if he knew Clark wasn’t human? It was a question he didn’t want to dwell on.

                “Come on, farm boy, I came to tell you your mom has breakfast ready.” Lex tried to get Clark back from whatever dark place he’d gone in his head. The mention of food seemed to help. “She made pancakes,” he said, slinging his arm around Clark’s shoulder. He hoped that the casual move would reassure Clark that he wasn’t upset about what had happened.

                “Pancakes? Two days in a row?” Clark said. Lex’s proximity and casual friendliness went leagues toward making Clark feel better and he slung an arm around him in return. “I must really be lucky.”

                “I’m beginning to think you’re the luckiest person on earth, Clark,” Lex joked. They parted so they could walk down the steps of the loft. At the barn door, Clark suddenly got a mischievous look in his eye.

                “Race you,” he said, not giving Lex a chance to answer before he took off toward the house, running at human speed but still faster than he knew Lex could run.

                “Clark! You better not eat all the pancakes before I even _get_ there!” Lex warned, shouting after him.

                Clark’s laughter echoed behind him as he ran to the house. Lex followed at a more sedate pace, feeling the most at peace he’d been in a long while. There were more questions in his life than ever, including the newest one about Clark’s reaction to what happened this morning, but Rey was back. That news seemed to trump all the other problems surrounding her return and other…revelations. Rey was back and she was recovering and the Kents were treating him like family, not just a Luthor. The bubble of happiness was back with a vengeance.

                Inside, Clark was piling his plate high with pancakes as Martha, Jonathan, and Ryan were serving themselves much smaller portions.

                “Lex, grab a plate. I made plenty, even with Clark eating half of them.” Martha gave her son an indulgent smile, which he attempted to return through a mouthful of pancake.

                Lex laughed and did as she asked, grabbing himself a modest two pancakes to Clark’s ten. He sat at the table next to Martha, across from Clark who apparently turned into a human vacuum around food.

                “Seriously, Clark, where do you _put_ it all?” Lex asked, fascinated by the amount of food going into Clark’s mouth.

                Clark shrugged. “Fast metabolism,” he answered.

                They all ate in silence for a few more minutes, thoroughly enjoying their food, before Jonathan spoke. “Did you sleep well, son?”

                It took Lex a moment to realize that Jonathan was talking to him and not Clark. A lump in his throat that had nothing to do with pancakes made him swallow hard. Son? He didn’t know where this newfound acceptance from the Luthor Hate Club’s founding member had come from, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

                “Yes, I did. That couch is surprisingly comfortable.”

                “I’m glad,” Jonathan said sincerely, smiling at him.

                Clark watched the exchange with contentment. He also had no idea when his father had decided to let go of his hatred of Lex, but he was glad of it. He had told his father a thousand times that Lex was not his father and that hating him just because of Lionel was not only unfair, but totally against everything his father had taught him his whole life about tolerance and acceptance. It felt good to have the two of them on good terms.

                Once breakfast was finished, Lex got up first, offering to help with the dishes. Martha waved him off at first, but he insisted and ultimately she allowed him to dry the dishes as she washed them. While they cleaned up, the others went to get changed to go back to the hospital.

                “Lex,” Martha started hesitantly once they were alone, “I just wanted to say thank you.”

                Lex raised an eyebrow. “Thank me? I should be the one thanking you.”

                “I mean for being such a good friend to my son. He deserves someone like you.”

                Lex ducked his head, focusing on the plate he was drying. As much as it meant to him to hear those words, he felt like he didn’t deserve them. “Mrs. Kent – Martha, I’m not a good person. I try to be but, well, I was raised by Lionel Luthor. I’ve made mistakes. Terrible ones. I – I don’t deserve your kindness, or your trust.”

                Martha put down the dish she was rinsing and turned off the water. “Lex Luthor, you look at me right now.” The fierceness in her voice was not to be disobeyed. Lex looked up. “You may have made mistakes but that does not make you a bad person nor does it make you like your father.” She held his eyes unwaveringly. “You said you try to be a good person. Sometimes in this life that’s all you can do – try. Everyone deserves kindness, Lex, and everyone deserves love. Especially those that try to be the best version of themselves. As for trust,” she turned back to the abandoned dish, twisting the faucet back on, “that’s a lot harder to earn in this family. But I’d say you’ve already earned my son’s trust and that’s more than good enough for me.”

                Lex was never going to get used to being on the receiving end of the particular Kent brand of love. The fierce loyalty of it, the unyielding faith. He was humbled yet again by Martha’s words and he mulled over what she said for the remainder of the chore.

                Ryan came down the stairs just as Lex put the last dish away. Knowing that the boy knew what he was thinking was slightly disconcerting, but for once, the vulnerability didn’t make him feel terror. Instead he used it to greet Ryan with a silent _Hello_ before going back to his musings on nature versus nurture and the question of who he would be if he had been raised by someone like the Kents instead of his father. He liked to think he’d be a lot more like Clark. More honest, more trusting, more full of light, but he couldn’t be sure. The darkness had become such a part of him over the past few years that he no longer knew who he was without it and he didn’t know how to wash it out. Maybe Martha was right; sometimes all we can do in this life is try to be the best version of ourselves, even if that version isn’t perfect.

                Clark came bounding in a few minutes later and together they headed back to the hospital, Clark riding with Lex and Ryan riding with the Kents. For all the happiness of this morning, the mood took on a somber edge upon entering the hospital. Rey still wasn’t awake. The police were there again and Lex told them everything he knew, which was admittedly not much besides who she was. The police had found nothing in the woods, no blood trail, no footprints, no evidence at all beyond the spot where Rey had been found lying. It was as if she had just dropped out of the sky.

                They decided to take shifts, with Lex being the only one who refused to budge from Rey’s side. Chores still had to be done on the farm and deliveries had to be made, but Lex and Rey were never left alone.

                Since Ryan was considered a witness in a police investigation, Child Services had granted Ryan the permission to stay with the Kents until the matter was resolved, giving him a few more precious days with the family he’d always wished he could have.

                When it was their turn to leave the hospital and do chores on the farm, Ryan took to the work happily, enjoying the fact that Clark didn’t bother hiding his abilities from him as he sped around the farm, lifting things that were far too heavy for a normal person. Clark taught him how to feed the horses and muck out their stalls, leaving him to take care of one horse while Clark quickly cared for the rest. It didn’t bother Ryan that he could only do a fraction of what Clark could do; he was just happy to be outside, doing something wholesome and helpful for the people who had saved him from his greedy step-parents.

                Clark was enjoying himself as well. It was like a great burden lifted off his shoulders that he didn’t have to hide himself around Ryan. He found himself laughing and joking around as they worked, soaking in the sunshine and feeling of brotherhood. Every few minutes his thoughts would drift back to Lex and Rey in the hospital, but out here, with light and laughter abundant, it was impossible to think things wouldn’t work out as they should.


	4. Healing

Several hours and many more pots of terrible hospital coffee later, Lex stretched and yawned in his seat, uncomfortable after sitting for so long. He stood up, pacing the room to stretch his legs. It was Jonathan in the room with him for now, and Lex felt his eyes on him as he paced.

                “You know, Lex, I just wanted to apologize for the way I behaved toward you before. It wasn’t fair of me.” He huffed a small laugh. “My son says I’ve been a hypocrite and he’s right. I try to teach him about tolerance and then I turn around and judge you based on who your father is, rather than trying to get to know you. There’s no excuse for that.”

                “Really, Mr. Kent, it’s okay.” Was there something in the water? Where was all of this warmth and acceptance coming from? “I won’t say it didn’t hurt, but I’m used to be judged on my last name rather than my first.”

                “That really doesn’t make it any better.”

                “Perhaps not,” Lex responded with a shrug, “but it does make it understandable.”

                Jonathan frowned, but said nothing. Lex continued to pace, his mind going over the events of the past twenty-four hours. Ryan had told him Rey called out to him. How did she do that? Was it part of Ryan’s ability or was there something else involved? He wondered about Rey’s injuries. Clearly, she had been tortured, but by whom? And why? There were so many questions that couldn’t be answered until Rey woke up. He paused his pacing and looked at her. Already her bruises looked better and her face was more recognizable, but her hair was still matted and full of dirt and blood. Her eyes twitched beneath their lids and Lex wished Ryan were there so he could know what she was dreaming about, if it was a good dream or another nightmare.

                There was a knock at the door and Lex looked up, hoping that the universe had decided to grant his wish. Instead he saw a nurse open the door and walk over to Rey with an apologetic glance toward him and Jonathan.

                “Good afternoon, Mr. Luthor. Mr. Kent.” She got to work taking Rey’s blood pressure and pulse, gently opening her mouth to place a thermometer under her tongue. The nurse had come in every hour or so since they’d been here, measuring Rey’s vitals and changing the bloody bandages on her wrists. The first time they had removed the reddened gauze Lex had had to repress a gasp. Her skin was scabbed over with blood, covering deep wounds that seemed to go down to the bone. An anger had filled him then that should have scared him with its violence, but all he felt was the need to find the monsters responsible for this and make them suffer. It wouldn’t be enough to kill them; he wanted to destroy them so completely that they wouldn’t be able to lift their heads from under their shame.

                He felt the same wave of rage and nausea as the nurse lifted the bandages again. He turned away before he could see the wounds underneath, but turned back at a small gasp from the nurse.

                “What is it?” Jonathan asked.

                “Nothing,” the nurse said quickly. “I mean, nothing bad. It’s just…her wrists look much better.”

                Lex swallowed the bile in his throat at the idea of examining the damage up close in favor of stepping closer and lowering his head to see what the nurse was talking about. She was right. There was still a lot of blood, some caked around the wound, some still oozing onto the white sheets of the bed, but Lex could no longer see bone. It looked as if she had been healing for weeks instead of hours.

                “I’m going to go get a doctor.” She hurried out the door and Lex and Jonathan were left staring at each other in bewilderment.

                 “I did say this was going to be another one of Smallville’s mysteries,” Lex said, aiming for levity and falling short. He looked back at Rey. Just what had they done to her?

                The doctor entered minutes later. He checked her wounds carefully and then ordered another x-ray. Lex stood back uselessly as they wheeled Rey away to be examined.

                “Do you think this is part of whatever they did to her?” he found himself asking aloud.

                “Maybe,” Jonathan replied, “but it seems strange that people who were trying to hurt her would also give her the ability to heal, doesn’t it?”

                Lex didn’t answer, instead mulling over possibilities in his head. He didn’t like any of them.

                The x-ray didn’t take long and Rey was soon wheeled back in. The nurse took more blood samples and left without answering any of their questions.

                “The doctor will know more soon. He’ll be in to speak to you about the results of the x-ray and the blood samples. Until then, consider it a miracle that she’s healing so quickly.”


	5. The 'Shovel Talk' from Best Friend Number One

“Hey, dad, Lex. Any change?” Clark asked, letting himself into the room without knocking. Ryan trailed behind him.

                Jonathan stood up. He shook his head. “She’s still asleep. Did you get my message?”

                “Yeah. You said she’s healing really quickly? I know that weirdness is kind of a Smallville specialty but I think this time it might be a good one, don’t you?”

                “I don’t know, Clark,” his father sighed. “I hope so.” They all turned to watch the rise and fall of Rey’s chest as she breathed, each stuck in their own thoughts. “Done with the deliveries for today?” Jonathan asked after a long moment, changing the subject and bringing them all back to the present.

                “Yeah. And everything’s done on the farm.”

                “Well, then I guess I’ll go home and help your mother.” Jonathan grabbed his coat and shrugged it on. He put a hand on Lex’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, son.” There is was again. Son. Lex was afraid of getting used to it, for fear that it would go away if he blinked.

                “Thank you, Mr. Kent. I’ll see you later.” With that Jonathan excused himself, stopping briefly to ruffle Ryan’s hair on his way out the door.

                Once he was gone, Lex went back to pacing the floor. How was Rey healing so quickly? Part of him feared that it was as he said to Jonathan and was the result of whatever was done to her, but another part of him couldn’t help thinking about his own immunity to illnesses and his elevated white blood cell count. Did it have anything to do with the meteor strike? Everything seemed to stem from that one day, branches spreading out steadily, affecting everyone it came into contact with.

More questions had come to him during these hours of waiting, more about Clark and the secrets he was slowly revealing to him. How did Clark know that language Ryan had spoken yesterday? How did everything tie together? Clark had told Ryan yesterday that he trusted Lex, but did that mean he trusted him with all his secrets? If so, what had made him change his mind about keeping them from him?

                Instead of voicing any of the concerns in his head, he asked Ryan, “What is she dreaming about?”

                Ryan looked at Rey in concentration. “I – I don’t know.” For the second time in his life, Ryan couldn’t hear what someone was thinking. “It’s like she’s blocking me out.”

                Lex and Clark exchanged a worried look. “Blocking you how?”

                “It feels different than when Clark blocks me out. Clark doesn’t have to think about it, there’s just a wall there that keeps me from hearing his thoughts, but it feels like she’s really having to try to keep me out.”

                Lex processed this. Well at least that partially answered his question about why Ryan couldn’t hear Clark’s thoughts. Somehow he was able to block him out. But how?

                “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Clark asked. Lex looked at him, confused. “I mean, that means she’s awake enough to consciously block Ryan out.”

                Lex looked back at Rey’s twitching eyelids and was forced to agree. Even if it did raise more questions than answers, Rey’s ability to prevent Ryan from reading her mind must mean that she had regained some control and was no longer lost to dark memories and morphine.

                Lex sighed, rubbing his head with his hand. It had been a long couple of days. He sat heavily in the chair by the bed, wishing with all his heart that Rey would just wake up and solve all the mysteries once and for all.

                “Lex, can I ask you a weird question?”

                Lex let out a surprised bark of laughter. “Define ‘weird’, Clark.”

                “Okay, that’s fair,” Clark said with a soft snort. “It’s just, was Rey with you that day, in the cornfield? The day of the meteor shower? You don’t talk about it much.”

                Lex looked up, making eye contact with Clark. There it was again, the knowledge that they both knew more than they let on, but Lex was pretty sure the one with the bigger secrets this time was Clark and not himself.

                He nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “We were playing hide and seek in the corn. She wasn’t very good at it,” he said, smiling at the memory. “She kept laughing and giving away her hiding spot. But she was fast and I was just a little asthmatic kid unused to country air. I was chasing her when the meteor hit.”

                “Was she hurt too?”

                “She tried to shield me from the blast actually. One second I was chasing after her and the next she was on top of me and the world was ending.”

                “Good job of protecting you I did.” Lex and Clark gasped at the sound of her voice, both of them turning toward her has she did her best to sit up, coughing painfully as she did so. Clark used his superspeed to rush to the other side of the bed and support her back as Lex pushed the button to raise the bed up to meet her. Lex said nothing about Clark’s open use of his abilities, though his curiosity and gratitude at being trusted mingled in his head until it was almost difficult to focus on Rey and not Clark. Almost. 

                “Rey!” Lex breathed. He reached out for her hand and was gratified to find her reaching back.

                “Hey, little bird,” she smiled. Rey had never been happier to see anyone in her life. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks and Lex worked hard to not match her; she had always had a much easier time showing her emotions than he ever had. “I see you’ve made some new friends.”

                “Rey, this is Clark and Ryan.” He resisted the urge to immediately start asking her questions, though they piled on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill over.

                “You are the ones who found me,” she said, looking first at Ryan and then Clark. “Thank you.”

                “We’re just glad you’re safe,” Clark said. Her eyes held his and for a moment he was reminded of Lex and the knowing, charged looks they’d shared over the past few months since they’d met. For the first time, he saw the resemblance between them and fully believed them to be siblings.

                “Lex,” she whispered, turning her attention back to him, “I’m so sorry.”

                “Sorry for what? You have nothing to be sorry for.” His voice was the most tender Clark had ever heard it and he watched as Lex reached out with his free hand to stroke Rey’s cheek with the backs of his fingers.

                “I was gone for so long. I don’t even know how long it’s been. I never meant leave you.”

                Lex shook his head at her words. The anger and betrayal he had felt at her absence had evaporated the second he saw her on the hospital bed, fighting for her life. “You’re back now. That’s all that matters.”

                They looked at each other for a long moment, silently communicating with each other the way they’d been able to do since they were kids. He wanted desperately to rid her eyes of the guilt and sorrow he saw there, but all he could do was look at her steadily and show her that he was not upset with her, only relieved that she was safe and with him again.

                A knock at the door interrupted their silent conversation. It was the doctor, back with the results of her earlier exam. His expression was confused rather than grim, so Lex’s heart squeezed for only a moment.

                “Ah, Ms. Rey, you’re awake." He gave the others a polite nod, but addressed his patient directly. "Normally, I would be surprised, but given your test results…I’ve never seen anything like it, even in Smallville. Your wounds are healing at three times the normal rate. If you continue like this, you should be fine within a few days. Whatever gods are smiling down on you, I would thank them, Ms. Rey.”

                “I will, doctor. Thank you.” Rey didn’t seem surprised by the information that she was healing at a supernatural rate. Her expression was calm and impassive, though her hand squeezed Lex’s just a little bit harder.

                After the doctor left, there was a moment of awkward silence where all three wanted to ask her how she was healing so quickly and why she didn’t seem to be perturbed by the news.

                “How –?” Clark finally started, only to be interrupted by Rey.

                “How am I healing so quickly?” she finished for him with a knowing smile. “A gift from the people who did this to me, in a way. I suppose I should be thanking them.” The bitterness in her voice didn’t match the smile still on her face.

                “But why would they do that?” Clark asked, unable to comprehend how someone evil enough to torture a teenage girl could also give her the gift of swift healing. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

                “Unless they wanted to torture her, let her heal, and then start over.” Lex’s voice was cold and detached, almost clinical. Clark stared at him in horror. Who would do such a thing? The thought alone made him sick to his stomach.

                “That’s why you blocked me out,” Ryan surmised. “You didn’t want me to see the rest of the dream.”

                “No one should have to see that,” Rey said, her eyes grim, “especially one so young.”

                Lex clenched the fist that wasn’t holding Rey’s hand. _And no one should have to live through it,_ he thought savagely. He was going to find those responsible and make them burn.

                “It’s okay, little bird." Rey soothed, her thumb rubbing circles on his hand. "It’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore.” Lex wondered if she could read his mind too.

                “Doesn’t matter?” Lex stood up suddenly, letting go of her hand. “How can you say that it doesn’t matter? Look at what they did to you!” He gestured to her face, the cast on her leg, the bandages on her wrist. “They won’t get away with this. I won’t let them.”

                Clark felt his own spark of anger at Rey’s words. Did she care so little about herself that she didn’t even want justice for what was done to her? Clark agreed with Lex; there was no way those responsible for this were going to get away with it.

                “It doesn’t matter because they’re dead,” Rey said matter-of-factly. “All of them.”

                Lex slowly sat back down. _‘They’re dead. All of them.’_ The words reverberated in his skull. It made him feel slightly better knowing that those monsters no longer walked the earth, but at the same time he felt like his vengeance had been snatched away from him. He had wanted to look into their eyes as he destroyed them.

                “What happened, Rey?” Clark asked softly. His own feelings were conflicted about the news that those responsible were dead. His first thought had been a vicious _good_ , followed by guilt about feeling happy that other people were dead.

                “That’s a long story,” Rey said with a sigh. She adjusted herself against the pillows and looked at each of them in turn. “One for another day, I think. For now, I just want to get out of here.”

                Lex wanted to respect the fact that she wasn’t ready to talk about what happened, but the questions burned inside him like hot coals and it took all of his willpower to not push for more information. He knew how she felt about getting out of this hospital though; the white walls and antiseptic smell made his skin crawl. Yet he seemed to visit this place a lot more frequently than the average person.

                “I’ll talk to the doctors about letting you come back to the mansion. Given how fast you’re healing, I doubt they’ll object. Just give me a moment.” Lex stood up and smoothed his wrinkled button down. To be honest, he was glad that Rey wanted to leave immediately. He was in desperate need of a shower and a new change of clothes.

                After Lex left to sort things out with the hospital staff, Clark and Ryan were left alone with Rey. Ryan was still trying to peer behind the wall Rey had erected to keep him out, catching glimpses of emotion that seeped out beyond her control. He could tell that she was tired and still in a lot of pain, but that mostly she felt relief. There was fear too, a lot of it, but he couldn’t tell what the cause was. She had said the people who hurt her were dead, so why was she still so afraid?

                “Clark,” Rey said, reaching out for his hand. He grasped her small, dark hand in his own large, tanned one. “Thank you. For being a friend to Lex. I can tell you’re good for him.” Clark held her gaze, but was unsure that her trust wasn’t misplaced.

                “I don’t know about that.”

                “I do. I know people, Clark, and you’re one of the good ones.” Clark felt his earlier guilt come back. Guilt over nearly putting Ryan in danger, guilt over lying to everyone he cared about, guilt over not being able to save everyone. It was the lying that caused him the most pain. How could Lex ever forgive him for lying to his face over and over again? He was determined to tell him the truth this time, but fear made its presence known by gripping him by the throat and making it hard to swallow. What if he lost Lex over this? He didn’t think he could bear it.

                “Stop thinking so much. I meant what I said and I don’t say that kind of thing lightly. Lex will tell you: I’m terribly overprotective of him and I would never approve of someone without full confidence that they would never hurt him. You would never hurt Lex, would you, Clark?”

                Clark shook his head, appalled by the idea of ever causing harm to his best friend. Rey hadn’t broken eye contact with him and she nodded at whatever she saw in his eyes, satisfied. Her confidence in him eased some of the fear he felt about the upcoming moment of truth, but it still lingered like a bad taste in the back of his throat.

                “Clark would never hurt anybody,” Ryan affirmed. “He’s a hero.”

                Clark shook his head with a small laugh. “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just a man. I’m not a hero.”

                “Who knows,” Rey said cryptically, “maybe one day you will be.”

                Lex walked back in the room to find Clark and Rey exchanging intense eye contact. Clark was holding Rey’s hand.

                “I see you two have started to get along,” he quipped. He felt like he had missed something important and was trying not to be bitter about it.

                Clark broke the eye contact first, still feeling unsettled by the amount of hidden knowledge he could see behind Rey’s eyes. He had an ominous feeling that the moment Rey started to answer their questions, their entire world was going to turn upside down.

                “Rey was just giving me the shovel talk,” Clark replied easily, only half joking. Rey may have said those words with the implication that she knew he would never hurt Lex, but there was an undeniable threat underneath that spoke of immense pain if he ever slipped up. The steadiness of her gaze in the silence afterward only further proved that she was serious. He had no idea how she planned to hurt him, but he had a feeling that his invincibility would be of no use before her wrath if he so much as bruised Lex’s pale skin.

                “You’ve known him for two seconds and you’re already threatening him?” Lex laughed. “Now I know you’re feeling better.”

                Rey smiled back at him. “What can I say? Old habits die hard.”

                Lex shook his head, remembering all the times Rey had protected him during the decade they had known each other. Even at age six she had been a force to be reckoned with. His own father backed off whenever she was around. That was part of what made it so much worse when she left. Suddenly he found himself alone, unprotected, and fully at his father’s mercy. It had been a rough five years.

                The paperwork had been done and the doctors had released Rey to Lex’s care, giving him instructions to not let her do anything more strenuous than sit up until her ribs were fully healed. Rey was carefully maneuvered to a wheelchair and wheeled out the front door of the hospital, where Lex had a car waiting. Clark lifted Rey easily out of the chair and placed her gently in the passenger seat.

                “Tell your parents I said thank you for everything they’ve done. I’ll call tomorrow with an update on how Rey’s doing.”

                “I will.”

                Lex rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and drove away at a much safer speed than usual. His tires didn’t even squeal against the asphalt as he took off for once. Clark and Ryan watched them drive away, Ryan still feeling perturbed by the fact that someone other than Clark could block his abilities, and Clark consumed by a thousand, buzzing questions. 

                “I’m so glad to have you back,” Lex said softly in the quiet of the car. He glanced over at Rey, only to find that she was already back asleep. Maybe her healing abilities sapped her energy, Lex mused. Or maybe it was just exhaustion from everything she had gone through. Likely, it was a combination of both. Either way, Lex lifted her out of the car himself once they arrived back at the mansion, waving away servants who offered to help. Rey was so light. She was still so young – how was she still so young? – and her body felt small and fragile against his. He had already called and had his servants prepare the bedroom next to his for her arrival and he headed straight there to lay her gently on the bed, pulling the covers up over her and smoothing the matted hair off her forehead. Tomorrow he’d see if she wanted to shower. Until then, he backed out of the room slowly and turned off the light. He kept the door partially open so he could hear her if she called for him in the night. He never wanted to be where he couldn’t hear her call for him again.


	6. Blood of the Covenant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blood of the covenant is thicker than water of the womb

The next morning brought sunlight flooding into the room and Rey blinked owlishly at the sudden brightness. Confusion and fear overwhelmed her as she couldn’t remember where she was. The last thing she remembered was running. The Outlands. The pain. The snow and ice and wind. Now she was warm and the bed beneath her was soft, but she had long since stopped trusting comfort as safety. She could feel where her bones were healing, hating the itch and ache of it. She could hear movement throughout the building she was in, and she used her heightened senses to listen intently. She heard movement, but it was faint and indiscernable. What she didn't hear, thankfully, was the tell-tale sound of heavily armored boots walking the halls or guns humming with charge. She looked around the room for an escape, surprised to find that there were so many routes available. The windows looked easy to open and weren't sealed from the elements, or from the heights of Ranked quarters. The door to the room was even ajar, inviting her to leave at her will. It filled her with trepidation; surely, it was a trap. Still, she had to try.

                Carefully, Rey swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, ignoring the rush of blood to head that made her dizzy. She gingerly got to her feet. She was proud of herself for not wincing. As quietly as she could, she made her way to the door, listening intently for any changes in the movements of house. The movements were becoming clearer now that she was more awake. She could hear someone in what must be the kitchen, chopping vegetables. There were two others in rooms on this floor, cleaning. Yet another was in the garden outside trimming the hedges. Hedges? She hadn't seen hedges, or really anything green, in... Yet she could hear the _snick, snick_ of the shears as they closed repeatedly over unruly greenery. She looked back at the windows. Trees. Tall, beautiful, blessed trees. Was she dreaming? The pain in her body said no, but her brain couldn't process what she was seeing. She was captivated by the scenery outside her window, but it was the voice carrying up from the floor below that caught her attention. It was familiar somehow. She crept toward the stairs, using the edges to avoid any creaks and groans from the wooden steps.

                As she got closer, the voice became clearer and his words were discernable.

                “I checked on her this morning, she was still asleep. Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Okay, I’ll let you know when she wakes up. Thank you, Martha.” There was a click, followed by a sigh as the man sat down in a chair behind him. Rey had to hold back a sob. Lex. She remembered now. She was in Smallville, on Earth, with Lex. The relief nearly brought her to her knees.

                “Rey? What are you doing out of bed?” Lex had heard a noise in the hall and had come to investigate. He found Rey leaning heavily against the wall, looking ashen and on the verge of tears. “Come here, let’s sit down.” He wrapped his arm around her to guide her to the couch in his office, but at his touch Rey crumbled, flinging both arms around him and pulling him close. She had been surprisingly put together yesterday, but now it felt like the truth of the situation had sunk in. She was on Earth, with Lex, and Lex was okay. Lex was okay and he was here, in front of her, solid and warm and hugging her back. She didn’t even try to stop the sobs this time.

                “Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. You’re safe now,” Lex soothed, stroking her back. “No one is ever going to hurt you again. I promise you that.”

                Rey sobbed until she had no tears left. The memories of everything that had happened since she left were too heavy to put down and she felt like Atlas carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Perhaps she was. She had known the death of one, after all.

                Somehow Lex had guided her to the couch and was sitting holding her like a child as she sobbed into him. Once her tears slowed, she let her body relax into him, feeling safe for the first time in a long time.

                “I know you have a lot of questions,” she began, but she felt Lex shake his head.

                “They can wait. For now, I think maybe a shower would go a long way toward helping you feel human again. Then I’ll have Marie bring up some breakfast.”

                Rey had to admit, a shower sounded pretty good and food sounded even better. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten recognizable food. For the past dozen cycles (years, they were called years on Earth) it had all been r’antha eggs and skewered creatures that looked a lot like frogs but tasted a lot like burnt cheese. And those were the good days.

                Lex helped her up the stairs, his arm carefully placed around her back just in case she were to fall. Once back in the room Rey had woken up in, Lex pulled open a drawer and pulled out some sweatpants and a t-shirt.

                “I figured comfort was of the essence,” Lex explained. He grabbed a towel from the closet and helped her limp over to the bathroom. Now that adrenaline was no longer flooding her veins, Rey’s leg ached terribly where it had been fractured and hurt to walk on.

                “Do you, uh,” Lex started awkwardly. Rey raised an eyebrow. It was very rare to see an awkward Lex Luthor. “Do you need help?”

                Despite her amusement at the pink dusting his cheeks and the tips of his ears, Rey considered his offer seriously. She figured she could manage a shower without harming herself. The doctors had already taken the cast off her leg when they saw how well it was healing and had replaced it with a removable brace. It wouldn’t take much to get it off and step into the shower, which looked incredibly indulgent with two shower heads on either side. She had never been more excited for a shower in her life.

                “I think I can handle it,” she let some of her amusement leak into her voice, but she meant it. She wouldn’t have turned down his offer if she thought she was in danger of falling or otherwise ending back up in the hospital.

                “Good,” he said, just a little too quickly. “I mean, that’s a good thing.” He cleared his throat. He was relieved that she didn’t need his help. Seeing his Rey naked was not on the top of his bucket list. It also meant that she felt strong enough to do it on her own, which was a positive sign. “I’ll be downstairs when you’re done. If you need me, just shout. I’ll hear you.”

                Rey nodded, knowing what he was trying to say. She knew that Ryan had seen the first part of her nightmare, had heard him tell Lex and Clark about it. He had seen the part where she had been calling out to Lex, to Adam, to Seg, to anyone who might hear her. To anyone who might care. She knew it had hurt him to hear that.

                Once Lex had left, Rey began the arduous process of removing her clothes and brace. Her ribs screamed when she lifted her arms over her head to take off her shirt, but she just hissed and moved on. Once the brace was finally off, she began work on the bandages around her ribs. She’d have to put on new ones after the shower. She had forgotten to ask Lex for some before he left.

                She turned on the shower, pleased with how quickly the water heated up. Stepping into the quadruple streams was like stepping into the world’s most gentle bonfire. Flames licked their way over her abused skin, soaking her filthy hair and flowing down in a coppery brown puddle at her feet where filth and blood mingled before quickly draining away. She stood in the water for a moment, letting her mind go blissfully blank. It took three washes to finally get the last of the dirt out of her hair and there were still thick knots and matted parts that might have to be cut away, but it was clean. She had been keeping it in tight braids for the past several years, but on that night...on that night she had let her hair down in more ways than one, and it had cost her. 

Lex had been right; she felt infinitely more human now that she was clean and fresh from the shower. She stepped out, gingerly patting herself dry with the towel, and put the brace back on her leg. She pulled the sweatpants on over it, glad that they were loose, and then slipped into the t-shirt. The clothes smelled like Lex; they must have been his. Though she couldn’t imagine him in something as casual as sweatpants and a t-shirt. Even when he was a child, his fashion sense had been impeccable and he was rarely seen without a designer label. It seemed that maybe a lot had changed since she was gone. The thought made her chest constrict painfully in a way that had nothing to do with broken ribs.

                Back downstairs in his study, Lex listened to the water run for what seemed like ages. Marie had already brought up their breakfast. He looked at the array of food, fearing that he might have gone a little overboard. Everything was piled high from pancakes to bowls of fresh fruit to mountains of bacon and eggs. He hadn’t known what she would want, since her tastes may have changed since he’d last seen her, but he made sure all her favorites were on the table. Finally, he heard the water shut off. It was another several minutes before he heard her start to descend the stairs and he rushed to see if she needed any help.

                “I’m fine, Lex,” she promised him. “You have no idea how much I appreciate your concern, but you don’t have to hover. I’ve gotten through much worse than this, believe me.”

                Lex really did not want to think about Rey going through worse than what she was going through right now. He had seen the doctor’s charts. He knew how close he had been to losing her.

                “Well, as your big brother I think I have a right to hover, even if you are tougher than you look.”

                Rey laughed, clutching her ribs when the effort made her lungs spasm painfully. Lex’s eyes widened and he reached out for her in concern. “Alright,” she said indulgently, waving off his worry about the pain caused by her attempt to laugh, “you win. Hover all you’d like.”

                “Thank you.” He helped her down the rest of the stairs and into his study where he’d had the staff set up the buffet. He heard Rey’s quiet intake of breath.

                “Too much?” he asked.

                Rey just stared at the food with wide, childish eyes. “Oh my god. I don’t know where to start.” She took in the absurd amount of food, her stomach growling fiercely. “I want to have some of everything,” she announced.

                Lex looked pleased with her answer and was quick to grab a plate and start piling on little bits of every type of food on the table. He brought the plate back to where he’d made her sit on the couch and sat next to her to watch her shovel food in her mouth, barely taking the time to chew.

                “Woah, slow down. It’s not going to disappear if you don’t eat it all in the next five seconds.”

                Rey blushed, slowing down to chew a mouthful of cinnamon roll. She swallowed. “Sorry, it’s just – I haven’t had actual food since I left. I haven’t seen bread in like, a hundred years.”

                Lex felt a stab in his heart at her words, but he kept his face neutral. No wonder her body had felt so small in his arms last night. She hadn’t been eating. It seemed like even more of a miracle now that she had survived these past five years.

                “Aren’t you going to eat too?” she asked, swallowing a mouthful of banana. “I think you have more than enough food for the both of us.”

                “Yeah,” he said, hoping that his voice sounded even and not like he’d just been swallowing gravel. “I just wanted to make sure you ate first.”

                “You do have a lot of food. Maybe you should invite your friends over from yesterday. Clark looks like he could pack away some food.” The last part was a joke, but she also knew it was true. Kryptonians had a serious metabolism. Even worse when they were exposed to a yellow sun.

                Lex had kind of wanted it to just be the two of them this morning, but he also didn’t want all that food to go to waste. Already he could see that Rey was slowing down, unable to eat too much after barely eating for so long.

                “Yeah, I think I’ll do that.” He made the call. Jonathan picked up and Lex informed him that Rey was awake before asking to speak to Clark.

                “Hey, Lex. How’s Rey?”

                “She’s doing well. She’s awake and eating. She took a shower on her own.”

                “That’s great!”

                “Yeah, it is." Lex paused to look over at Rey. She looked so much better already it was a little hard to comprehend. "Listen, Clark, I might have gone a little overboard with breakfast this morning and I was wondering if you’d like to come over and help us eat it? Ryan is welcome to come too of course.”

                “All you had to do was mention food and I’m there.” Lex laughed. Of course he would.

                “I’ll see you in a few minutes then.”

                “Actually,” Clark said, and Lex looked up to see Clark and Ryan already walking into the study, “we’re kind of already here.”

                “Jeez, Clark. Did you guys teleport? Is food all it takes to get you over here so fast? Do your parents not feed you enough?”

                “It’s my fault,” Ryan admitted. “Clark was going to drive us but I wanted him to run. It’s so much fun. I didn’t have to try very hard to convince him though. You did promise him food.”

                “You ran here,” Lex said slowly. He knew this was another piece of the Clark Kent puzzle coming into place. “Were you still on the phone with me while you ran? I didn’t hear you breathing hard.”

                “Your place is only ten miles from the farm. It didn’t take much energy to get over here.”

                Lex stared at him. “Right,” he nodded, “only ten miles. A casual run. That only takes ten seconds.”

                “Lex, I know now’s not the best time to tell you all this, but yeah. I actually ran kind of slowly because I was holding Ryan and talking to you at the same time.” Lex just kept staring. “I’m just trying not to hide anything from you anymore.”

                Lex pulled himself out of his stupor by sheer force of will and stepped closer to his friend. “And I appreciate that, Clark. More than you know. I’m glad you finally feel like you can trust me.”

                “It wasn’t about not trusting you. It was – it’s more complicated than that.” They looked each other in the eyes, communicating silently the same way Lex could with Rey. But it felt different with Clark. Not a bad different just…different.

                “Well, one thing that’s not complicated,” Rey said, breaking the tension, “is breakfast. Dig in, boys. I promise everything is delicious.”

                Clark grinned and looked over at the feast that was laid out on the table that had obviously been brought in just for this purpose. He rubbed his hands together, excited.

                “Maybe you and Ryan should get your food first,” he suggested. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop himself from eating everything once he got started. His parents were having a harder and harder time keeping him fed, given that his stomach had turned into a bottomless pit which no amount of food could satisfy.

                “From the look in your eyes, Clark, I think that’s a good idea,” Lex laughed. He gestured for Ryan to go first and once they had both gotten themselves a full plate, Clark dug in without reserve. The rest of them watched in a mix of awe and mild disgust as he finished off almost everything that was left on the table. When he was done, he eyed Rey's still mostly full plate. She chuckled softly, the closest to a laugh she could safely get to, and pushed the plate toward him. He smiled gratefully and finished off what was left of her breakfast. Finally sated, he leaned back in the armchair he was sitting in and burped loudly.

                “I haven’t been this full in a long time.”

                “I should think not. It’s amazing that you haven’t eaten your parents out of house and home.”

                Clark shrugged. “I’m just hungry all the time is all. Thanks for feeding me.”

                “Yeah, Lex, thanks,” Ryan echoed. “The food was really good.”

                Lex accepted their gratitude, still mulling over Clark’s admission that he let himself go hungry rather than ask Jonathan and Martha Kent for food they couldn’t afford. Yet another example of Clark’s selfless nature. He resolved to find some way to make sure Clark always got enough to eat.

                “Clark,” Rey said, calling him back from his food coma. As much as she enjoyed this casual morning, it was time to address the elephant in the room. “I think it’s time to tell Lex your secret. I think if he knows yours, it will be easier to tell him mine.”

                Clark was startled. His mouth gaped like a fish, opening and closing. “How do you know my secret?”

                “You mean other than the fact that you just openly admitted to running an easy one second mile?”

                Clark blushed. At the time, he had forgotten she was in the room. He had been so focused on Lex and how he would take the news that Clark could run faster than a speeding bullet that he hadn’t thought of Rey at all. “Well, yeah.”

                “That’s why I think you should go first. My secret is tied to yours and I think it’s time for some clarity.”

                Clark was even more intrigued now. He thought about the language Ryan had spoken the other day, how it had ignited some part of his brain that he didn’t even know was there. A memory of another world. It was just a brief flash of understanding, a moment when, for one brilliant second, he knew where he had come from and why. And then it was gone and he was left with a billion more questions and zero answers.

                “Do you know my parents?” he blurted. He had to know.

                “Your parents? In a way. But not directly.” Cryptic, as usual.

                Clark was stunned by the admission and its implications. He had been right when he assumed that she knew far more than she let on. He just hadn’t guessed that she’d actually know who his parents were.

                “Tell me,” he pleaded. “You know who they are, where they’re from. Tell me everything.”

                “I will,” she promised soothingly. “But first, I think Lex deserves some answers, don’t you?”

                Lex was watching the exchange with a neutral expression and curious eyes. Yes, Lex did deserve some answers. And it seemed like he needed them from more than just Clark.

                He watched as Clark took a deep breath, not looking at him. He could see how scared he was. Lex let his poker face drop in favor of leaning forward in his chair and trying to meet Clark’s eyes. He was too far away to reach out and touch him, but it didn’t stop him from automatically trying to get as close as possible. Neither of them had ever exactly been good at personal space when it came to the other. A part of the brotherhood, the feeling of kindred spirit, that they had for each other, Lex figured.

                “It’s okay, Clark. Whatever you have to tell me, it’s okay.” He had a feeling he already knew at least part of it. He had guessed from the moment they first met on the riverside that Clark was not an ordinary high school boy. Now, he was about to get confirmation.

                Clark still didn’t look up at Lex, but his words did give him the courage to say, “You did hit me on that bridge.”

                Lex raised his eyebrows but otherwise didn’t react. Clark snuck a glance at his expression, not quite relieved, but not quite discouraged by what he saw. Lex wasn’t freaking out, but he was usually eerily good at hiding his emotions, with the other night being an outlier. Clark pushed on.

                “I survived because I’m an alien.”

                Lex’s expression didn’t change, but he felt his brain short circuit. Of all the things he had expected, that had not been one of them. He leaned back in his chair, careful to maintain his mask of neutrality, and steepled his fingers together.

                “Go on,” he encouraged.

                “The meteor strike. It was a cover for my arrival. Everything that happened that day and all the stuff with the meteor rocks afterward is all my fault.”

                Clark’s guilt weighed heavily upon him. He hung his head, unable to look up and see the accusation in Lex’s eyes. The anger. Lex had been there that day; he knew better than anyone the price of the meteor strike. Lex had been lucky to just lose his hair and not his life, like Lana’s parents had lost theirs.

                Rey had quietly led Ryan out of the room as they two boys talked. They had been so embroiled the pain of telling the truth and the shock of hearing it that they hadn’t noticed the two of them slip out the door of the study and sneak off to the library.

                Rey listened closely to their conversation even as she distracted Ryan by showing him Lex’s Warrior Angel collection. Ryan listened too, albeit only to one side since he could only read Lex’s mind and not Clark’s. He’d found that the more familiar a person’s mind was the farther away he could be and still hear them. He had grown quite used to Lex’s mind over the past few days.

                Ryan heard Lex’s thoughts become sharp and clinical as he listened to Clark’s confession. He felt the hurt at all the times Clark had lied to him, but Lex wasn’t angry. Ryan knew that Lex was ashamed of the times he had also lied to Clark and he knew Lex understood that Clark had his reasons for keeping his true nature a secret that had nothing to do with him. That didn’t stop him from becoming detached, a defense mechanism against hurt. Lex might eventually be okay with his best friend being an alien, but it was going to be a moment before he got to that point.

                “Do you think they’ll be okay?” Ryan asked Rey quietly, gently placing an issue of Warrior Angel back on its stand.

                Rey sighed. “They’ll figure it out.” She knew that Clark’s honesty would go a long way toward ensuring Lex’s loyalty, not that Clark didn’t already have it. Even if Rey didn’t know everything that she knew, she would have seen how much Lex cared about Clark the second she saw them together. She would have seen, too, how much Clark cared for Lex in return. Lex may have temporarily lost a sister, but he had gained a brother and Rey couldn't have been more grateful.


	7. Revelations

Back in the study, Lex was still listening impassively to Clark’s story, his eyes thoughtful and distant. Clark was growing more and more uneasy by Lex’s lack of reaction. His fear about losing his friend came back full force and he found himself stammering and rambling as he continued to fill in the details. He told Lex everything, how he didn’t know about his origins until Lex hit him with his car, how he was still discovering new abilities all the time and how scary it was, how lonely it felt to not be able to tell anyone. He confessed everything as though Lex were a priest and Clark the sinner. Finally, after Clark had told Lex every detail he could think of concerning his secret, Clark sat in silence, fidgeting. Lex was like a statue, unmoving and unmoved.

                “Lex?” Clark tried, his voice barely a whisper. “Please say something. Anything.” Lex stayed stubbornly silent. “Just, tell me you hate me. Tell me to get out. Yell at me. Anything, just, say something.”

                At last, Lex moved. He sighed, running his hand over the bare skin of his head before rubbing it back down over his face.

                “I don’t hate you, Clark,” he said, and Clark let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “I just. I need a minute.”

                Clark tried to hold still and not fidget as he struggled to give Lex space to think. What was he thinking about? For a second Clark wished he had Ryan’s ability to read minds. That would make this situation so much easier.

                “So, you’re an alien. You think the meteor shower is somehow your fault and blame yourself for everything that it caused. You’re able to save people because you’re super strong and fast and have x-ray vision. You didn’t tell me because it’s dangerous, but mostly you were afraid I’d hate you, but you still decided to tell me because you hate lying. Am I missing anything?”

                “Uh, no, I think you got most of it.”

                “Right. Well, first, the meteor shower was not your fault.” That was not what Clark had expected to hear. He opened his mouth to protest but Lex held up a finger. “No, Clark. You were a baby. Even an alien baby can’t be held responsible for a meteor strike. I won’t let you feel guilty about that.”

                “Lex, you don’t understand – “

                “I understand perfectly. Your parents, whoever they are, put you on a ship and sent you to Earth for reasons unknown. They are the ones that are responsible for the meteor strike and they are the ones responsible for you being here and I, for one, could not be more grateful.”

                “I – wait, what?”

                “Clark, I told you before, friends to a Luthor are as rare as evergreens in a desert. I got lucky meeting Rey, but I also got lucky meeting you, Clark. I feel that way now more than ever. I feel like we were meant to be friends. I feel like I was meant to have you in my life.”

                Clark couldn’t help the relieved grin that started to spread across his face. “You mean, you don’t think I’m a freak? You still want to be my friend? You’re not…you’re not freaked out?”

                “Of course I still want to be your friend. I do, however, think you’re a little bit of a freak,” he said and Clark felt his stomach drop a little until he saw Lex’s smirk. “I mean, what normal person eats enough food for a small army in one sitting?”

                Clark laughed, finally put at ease. “What would you say if I told you I’m kind of hungry again?”

                Lex shook his head incredulously. “I’d be naïve if I said I was surprised, but I am a little disgusted.”

                “It’s not my fault! It must be some part of alien biology. I just can’t physically eat enough food.” Clark was dangerously close to pouting. 

                “We could find out, you know,” Lex said carefully. “About your biology, I mean. I have scientists and doctors that I trust; they could figure out about your dietary needs, how your body works differently than humans’. You would totally be in control of what they tested and how. Think about what scientific secrets your body could be hiding, Clark!”

                “Lex,” Clark cautioned. He had been afraid of this. Lex was a scientist at heart, even if he was a businessman by trade. He should have known that Lex would want to examine him, pick him apart like an old radio and put him back together again. Visions of doctors poking and prodding him, figuring out his weaknesses and using them against him, keeping him locked away from the world, filled his head and every fear his parents had ever instilled in him came flooding to the surface.

                Lex saw the fear in his eyes and his lust for knowledge sputtered and faded like a dying candle. “I’m sorry, Clark. You know I would never do anything to hurt you, never force you to do anything you don’t want to do, right?”

                “Yeah, Lex, I know,” Clark said, but his smile was wan. He was still seeing needles and white lab coats.   

                Lex felt the need to make up for his mistake, but he didn’t know how. “How about I call for some more food, since it is technically lunch time by now. And until it arrives we can track down Rey and Ryan. I have a feeling Rey wanted to give us some privacy.”

                “Food sounds good. As for Rey and Ryan,” he said with a more genuine smile, scanning the mansion with his x-ray vision, “they’re in the library.”

                “Did you just use your x-ray vision?” Clark nodded and Lex looked like a child in a candy shop. “I’m going to go ahead and say it. That is so cool.” Clark laughed, full and bright, and grinned at his best friend. He felt the urge to show off, to show him what other ‘cool’ things he could do.

                “Lex, how opposed are you to being carried?”

                “Wha –?” But Lex didn’t get a chance to finish before Clark was lifting him in his arms as though he weighed nothing and sprinting down to the library. He moved slowly in the still unfamiliar house, but to Lex it seemed more like teleportation than speed travel. Clark let Lex down, grinning like a maniac. It was all worth it for the look on Lex’s face right now.

                “Give a guy a little warning next time, Clark, jeez,” he grumbled, but he was smiling so Clark didn’t take it to heart.

                “Isn’t it fun? You should feel it when he runs really fast, it’s like flying.” Ryan was happy to see that the two of them had worked everything out. He knew Clark would have been devastated if Lex hadn’t forgiven him or worse, hadn’t accepted him for who he was.

                “Yeah, it was kind of fun,” Lex admitted, straightening his clothes. “And completely terrifying.”

                Ryan and Clark laughed. Rey just smiled contentedly, knowing that laughter would still be painful at the moment. She was glad that everything seemed to be working out even better than she had anticipated. Lex seemed truly happy and it eased some of the pain of the recurring nightmares she’d had over the years of not getting back in time to save him. In the dreams she was too late. She was always too late.

                “Come on,” Ryan urged, leading the way back to the study. “Lex ordered lunch and I kinda want to watch Clark eat another mountain of food. It’s like watching a car wreck – you can’t look away.”

                Clark made a noise of protest but Lex just clapped him on the shoulder in mock sympathy. “It’s true. If I didn’t know you were an alien before, watching you eat that much would have confirmed it.”

                “I’m just hungry,” Clark mumbled, turning pink. “’s not my fault.”

                “We’re just teasing you, Clark. Eat as much as you like,” Lex assured him gently. The four of them made their way back to the study and found that the dishes from breakfast had already been cleared away and a new array of food had been put out.

                “Wow, that was fast,” Clark said in awe. Lex made a mental note to give his staff a raise.

                Again, Clark was the last one to get his food and he waited until everyone had had their fill before he dug in. He did his best to eat slowly and chew everything properly, but it was like the more he ate the hungrier he became until finally he was so full he felt like his stomach might burst. He laid his head back on the armchair with a contented sigh, patting his stomach.

                “I’m gonna have to come eat here more often,” he joked.

                “You’re welcome here anytime, Clark, you know that.” Clark looked at him gratefully. He wasn’t sure how often he’d take him up on his offer – he didn’t want to impose and cost Lex hundreds of dollars in unnecessary food expenses – but he was glad Lex had made it anyway.

                As they sat there in silence, full and warm and content in front of the fireplace, Lex again went over the events of the past few days. From being held at gun point in his own limo and then thrown out onto the street from said limo, to Rey’s mysterious return, to learning that telepaths are real and that Ryan is one of them, to the biggest revelation of all – Clark’s secret. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a more eventful string of days.

                “For what it’s worth,” Ryan said suddenly, breaking the silence, “you’re handling it all really well, Lex. Not many people would be as calm as you after everything that happened. You’re a lot stronger than you think.”

                Lex looked over at him, at a loss for words. He knew he should feel upset about the invasion of privacy that came with reading his mind, but Ryan had never used his thoughts against him, had only ever comforted him when he needed it. Lex knew the truth of Ryan’s words, but he also didn’t feel calm or strong in the face of everything that had happened. He felt exhausted.

                “Ryan is right, Lex,” Rey said gently. She reached over and placed her hand over his. “Sometimes I forget just how incredibly strong you are. But you’re even stronger now than when I left, I can see it in your eyes.”

                “Why did you leave, Rey?” Lex asked. He hated how much like a child he sounded, small and lost, but he couldn’t help it. The ancient hurt of abandonment was a hard one to swallow.

                “I didn’t have a choice, Lex. I swear to you I would never have left if I had a choice.”

                “I don’t understand. How didn’t you have a choice? Who made you go?”

                “It’s…more complicated than that.”

                “Then explain it to me. Please, I need to understand.” Lex covered her hand with his, pleading with her for answers.

                “I don’t know where to begin,” she admitted. Rey had thought about how to tell Lex everything a thousand times while she was away, but all the rehearsed lines disappeared in the face of his searching eyes. He needed answers and she had no idea how to give them.

                “Start at the beginning,” Clark advised. “It worked for me.”

                So she did.


	8. Krypton

_It had started when she was two years old. She had been playing in the nursery with her toys. Her mother had just stepped out of the room for a moment, when all of a sudden, she found herself in an entirely different nursery, one full of toys she had never seen before. It was so foreign, so unlike anything she had ever seen, that she immediately began to cry, afraid. There was a little boy in the room, the same age as her. He had dark curly hair and hazel eyes and he hugged her until she stopped crying. He offered her his toy space ship to play with and it flew around them of its own accord, looping and diving and soaring back up again. It was mesmerizing to watch and Rey was sad to find that, when she blinked, it was all gone and she was back in her own room, playing with her own toys that didn’t fly around the room on their own._

_She soon forgot about the boy and the magic space ship, though they both appeared in her dreams sometimes, quiet, intelligent hazel eyes and a dark grey space ship shaped like a triangle. After her parents’ death, two years later, she didn’t even dream about them at all._

_The second time it had happened she was five. Her parents had died the year before and she had gone to live with her cousin, Bruce Wayne, in Gotham. She had been climbing a tree outside during a game of hide and seek with Bruce and one of the servant’s daughters when suddenly the bark underneath her fingers turned to smooth, purchase-less metal, and she fell to the ground. Luckily, it had been a short fall, but she broke her arm nonetheless. The boy was there again, though she didn’t understand why she recognized him, and he called for his mother, who scooped her up in her arms and took her to a doctor who used strange, holographic scans to check her injury. Rey looked at the scans with fascination. She had no idea what any of them meant, but it was interesting to see her insides floating above her in swirling blue light. Whatever the doctor saw in the scan alarmed her, and she went in search of a someone to confirm what she saw. In the meantime, Rey cradled her arm to her chest and wished the boy would come back so she could talk to him. He had seemed sad and she wanted to know why. It was the same kind of sadness that she felt whenever she remembered that her parents were never coming back._

_When she next blinked, she was on her back beneath the tree on the Wayne Manor grounds, her arm throbbing. Alfred is the one that found her and carried her inside. Rey was silent as the Wayne’s on-call doctor examined her arm. She barely even winced when he set the bone and put on the cast._

_“Rey?” Bruce asked tentatively, hovering at the door. “Are you okay?”_

_Rey looked past the doctor who was already packing up his supplies. He gave Rey a small, encouraging smile and walked over to Bruce’s dad and explained how to care for Rey’s arm. They spoke softly to each other as Bruce edged his way into the room. He looked guilty._

_“Hey, Bruce.” Rey’s smile encouraged him and he stepped up to the bed where she was sitting._

_“I’m sorry you broke your arm.”_

_“It’s okay. It doesn’t really hurt.”_

_“You’re stronger than me then,” he said. “It hurt a lot when I broke my arm.”_

_Rey looked down at the white cast that now weighed down her right arm. She had a feeling that if the other doctor had been the one to care for her, she wouldn’t be wearing something so bulky and unwieldy. She wondered about that other place, about the boy with the sad eyes and the dark hair. It had felt like a memory, like something she should remember but didn’t. For some reason, she thought of a tiny space ship floating in a nursery._

_The third time, she was ten and she was sitting in class at Excelsior Academy. She began to feel strange, like there was a hook behind her eyes, pulling and pulling. It made the room spin and she felt nauseous. She asked to go to the bathroom, ignoring the worry in Lex and Bruce’s eyes as they looked up from their work. She escaped to the restroom and locked herself in a stall, wondering if she was going to throw up. Panic filled her. She had never felt so horrible in her life. She closed her eyes and leaned against the stall door._

_When she opened them again, she was in a small, dark house that she had never seen before. Some of the designs looked familiar, but she couldn’t place them. Thankfully, the dizziness had settled and the nausea was fading steadily. She pushed off the wall she was leaning against and looked around. Whoever lived here obviously didn’t have much to their name; there was nothing but the bare necessities and a few odd trinkets. The sound of the door opening made her heart quicken and she looked around for a place to hide. The house was too small to offer any form of cover. She stood still like a rabbit who hears the approaching footsteps of a wolf._

_“It’s you,” the boy said as he entered. It was definitely the same boy she had seen five years ago. She had begun to wonder if she had dreamed him._

_“I – I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she admitted. The boy stepped forward._

_“I don’t know either, but I’m glad you are. This is the third time I’ve seen you and I was beginning to think I was going crazy.” He reached out and touched her shoulder. “But you’re definitely real.”_

_“My name’s Rey.” She wasn't sure she felt real in this moment._

_“Seg. Nice to meet you.” They stared at each other for a long moment before they mutually broke eye contact and Rey took another look around the small living space._

_“What is this place? Where am I?”_

_“That depends on what you’re asking,” Seg said carefully. He seemed to realize that she was more out of place than a prince among paupers. He took in her strange clothing with a raised eyebrow. “This is my home, in Section Nineteen. You’re among the Rankless, Kandor’s most unfortunate.” The last part was said with a dramatic sweep of his arm and a bitterness that Rey didn’t have time to dissect._

_“Kandor? Is that the name of the city? I’ve never heard of it.”_

_“How could you not have heard of Kandor? It’s one of the last strongholds of Krypton. Everywhere else is either uninhabitable or too far away to get to - unless you're Ranked. So unless you’re secretly Ranked and came down here to see how the other half lives, this is the only city you could be from.” He clearly doubted that she was upper class, either from her clothes or her mannerisms or from their previous encounters, Rey didn't know, but she didn't really care._

_“Krypton?”_

_Seg stared at her. “Yeah,” he said slowly, as though she was incredibly dense and speaking slowly might just get through to her. “You know, the planet we’re on? Krypton?”_

_Rey raised an eyebrow. It was her turn to be skeptical. “Right. And I suppose that makes you an alien? Or I guess I would be the alien in this scenario since I’m not from_ Krypton _.” She said the last word sarcastically. Whatever weirdness was going on, she highly doubted that it involved her being on another planet._

                “Krypton?” Clark interrupted. “Is that where I’m from?”

                “Yes,” Rey replied easily, as though this were not earth-shattering information.

                Clark slumped down in his chair, boneless. Krypton. He’d never had a name to put to that imaginary place in his mind where he was from. He had spent many sleepless nights since his father had shown him the space ship in the storm cellar wondering what it was like, what his parents were like, why they’d decided to send him to Earth. Now that the answers seemed all be right in front of him, he felt equally terrified and excited to know.

                “Clark, I don’t have all the answers.” Could she read his mind too? “But I’ll tell you everything I know.”

                She continued her story once she was satisfied no one else was going to interrupt her.

_Seg had taken her on a tour of Section Nineteen, showing her the foreignness of the town, its strange architecture and even stranger food. She met his friend Kem, an orphan raised by someone named Mama Zed who followed Seg into every mischief he could conceive of in his grief-addled, ten-year-old brain. She absorbed everything like a sponge, from the bizarre fashions to the even more bizarre items sold on the black market. Nothing was familiar._

_“Seg, can I ask you a weird question?” Seg raised an eyebrow but gestured for her to continue. “What language are we speaking right now?”_

_“Um, Kryptonian?”_

_Rey nodded; she had been expecting that, but she was still surprised. “What I don’t understand, is how I’m speaking Kryptonian when I didn’t even know this planet existed until a few hours ago.”_

_“_ That’s _what you don’t understand?” Kem asked, incredulous._

_“I think she means that if you get over the fact that she’s an alien from another planet, it’s pretty weird that she’s able to unconsciously speak our language.”_

_“Right, if you get over that little detail it’s a perfectly normal question to ask.” Even at ten years old Kem was a sarcastic little bastard. Maybe that’s why Rey took to him so quickly._

                This time it was Lex who interrupted. “I think it was a reasonable question. I mean, spontaneous interplanetary travel aside, it’s pretty odd that language wasn’t a barrier.”

                “Thank you, I thought so too,” Rey replied. “Do you remember that time when I became obsessed with linguistics and how people learn language?”

                Lex nodded. “You wouldn’t shut up about neurolinguistics and cases of savants learning whole languages in a matter of days. I thought it was payback for all the times I talked your ear off about history and biochemisty.”

                Rey laughed at that. “That may have been part of it,” she admitted, “but really I was trying to figure out how I learned Kryptonian just by traveling there.”        

                “Did you?” Ryan asked. “Figure it out, I mean?”

                Rey shook her head. “Still a mystery, I’m afraid. Just like what caused me to be able to travel to Krypton in the first place, given that it was destroyed so long ago.”

                Clark felt like he’d been sucker punched. “Destroyed?” he asked hollowly.

                “I’m so sorry, Clark. I meant to break it to you gently.”

                Clark didn’t think there was a gentle way to break it someone that their whole planet, their whole people, were destroyed.

                “How?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

                “It was a long time coming. The planet had already become over ninety percent uninhabitable. Krypton’s uranium core became unstable and the planet exploded, destroying the planet’s red sun with it.”

                Clark bowed his head in a grief too big for words.

                “Seg said that Kandor was one of the last cities on Krypton. The planet was already dying when you arrived.” Lex’s voice was soft as he pushed for the information Clark was no longer able to ask for.

                “Yes, it was. Kandor was huge, bigger than any city on Earth, but it contained most of the last remaining Kryptonians. Close quarters and politics forced them into a strict hierarchy that favored the rich and discarded the poor. It was a cruel society, but one of incredible beauty and scientific advancement. Your house, Kal-El, was the most highly regarded in society and was known for its contributions to science and for saving the whole of Krypton from destruction before its time. I know it’s small consolation, but you should be proud of where you come from, Clark.”

                “What did you call me? I mean, what was that name?”

                “Kal-El. That was your name on Krypton.”

                Lex was watching Clark carefully. He could almost see the gears turning in his mind, processing all this momentous information at once. He could only imagine how much it meant to him to know his heritage, then to have it all taken away from him in the same breath.

                Clark was silent for a long moment, then, “Am I – I mean, were there any others?”

                “Any other survivors? Yes, Clark. You are not alone.”

                Lex saw the tears accumulate in Clark’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Rey’s words had hit him like a hammer blow and he knew Clark was reeling, that he needed to be pulled back in, but Lex had no idea how to reach out to him. How do you comfort a man who just found out that his home planet had been destroyed, but that he wasn’t as alone as he always thought?

                “I think I need some air,” Clark announced. He launched himself out of his chair and was gone before any of them could move.

                Rey let out a long breath. “That went just about as well as expected.”

                “I’m going to go check on him,” Lex said. He stood up and walked toward the door Clark had just disappeared through. Rey watched him go, glad for the bond that connected the two men. It was strange to think of the future Adam had told her about, a future where Lex and Clark hated each other. She was determined to change that future. As Lex climbed into his car, he realized that he had no idea where to start looking. Where would Clark go to seek comfort in a time like this? He didn't think he'd go home, and he highly doubted that either Chloe or Pete knew his secret so he wouldn't go to them. He started the car, thinking. Then he knew. 

                Lex drove out to the river where he had first met Clark, where he’d hit him with his car and turned his life upside down in one moment of distraction. He didn’t know why he knew Clark would be here, but as he drove up, sure enough, Clark was there, staring down into the water as though it could give him some insight into the nature of the universe.

                “Clark,” he called. His leather shoes made almost no noise against the asphalt as he approached. “Clark,” he said again, but he had no words beyond that. No amount of smooth talking or eloquent prose could ease the pain in his friend’s heart.

                “’They’re all dead.’ She said that. In the hospital. She meant all of them, every single Kryptonian. The ones who hurt her. The innocent ones. The children.” Clark broke, covering his face with his hands as he sobbed. Lex rushed to his side, placing one hand on his strong shoulder while the other gently guided him into a hug. Clark clutched at him like he was the only solid thing in the world keeping him from sinking. Lex let him cry. It had been an emotional few days for all of them. It was only fair that it was Clark’s turn to be allowed to break down.

                Lex had no idea how long they stood there, holding each other, Clark’s tears soaking the shoulder of his silk shirt, but eventually, as the sun began its descent into the horizon, Clark’s iron grip loosened and he stopped shaking. Lex held on, letting Clark be the one to back up first.

                His eyes were rimmed red and his face was flushed, but he looked like he felt better having cried out all his emotions. Lex kept his hand on Clark’s shoulder, wanting to maintain some point of contact.

                “Thank you, Lex. I think I’m ready to go back now.”

                “Are you sure?”

                “Yeah. I need to know. And I think you want to know more about what happened too.”

                “Okay. Do you want a ride? I know you can run but –”

                “That would be great, Lex. Thanks.”

                They both climbed in the car and Lex started the engine. He carefully turned the car around and drove them slowly back to the mansion. He had the feeling that Clark still needed an extra few moments to think, so he took the long way.

                Lex needed the time to think as well. The newest revelations had hit Clark the hardest, but he also felt like the proverbial rug had been ripped from under his feet. He had thought there were no secrets between him and Rey but it turns out she had been hiding half a life from him. How many times had she disappeared only to be found hours or days later, making up some excuse for where she’d been? Why hadn’t she told him before?

                Then there were other questions, like how Rey was able to travel to Krypton in the first place. A brief moment of anger gripped him and he wondered viciously if she was even telling the truth. The moment was gone as soon as it arrived, and he felt guilty for even thinking it. He trusted Rey, even if it seemed she hadn’t trusted him the entire time they knew each other.

                The Porsche pulled up to the mansion gates, which swung open for him, and Lex parked. Neither of them moved to get out.

                “Lex, thank you.”

                “For what, Clark?” he asked, honestly confused.

                “For being here. For being my friend. For, you know,” he gestured vaguely, “everything.”

“Any time, Clark.” Clark smiled at him, just a small pull at the corners of his lips, but it felt like a victory. Lex unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of the car. Behind him, Clark did the same. Together they walked back in to face the rest of whatever truths Rey had to reveal.


	9. The Truth About Forever

                When they neared the study, they could hear Ryan and Rey deep in a strange, seemingly one-sided conversation.

                “There were how many – what did you call them, Saggitarai?” A long pause and then, “Wow. And then what?” Another long pause.

                “Did you guys get away?”

                Silence, followed by Ryan’s loud whoop of triumph and Rey’s soft chuckle. They walked in to see the two sitting next to each other on the couch, laughing.

                “It seems like you two had fun without us,” Lex observed, a smile gracing his lips.

                “Rey was telling me – or rather showing me – about the time she and Seg snuck into the military guild to break Seg’s girlfriend out of prison.”

                “Sounds like a fascinating story,” Lex said smoothly, his expression betraying nothing. “I’d love to hear about exactly how Rey got herself into such a situation.” He addressed his last sentence at Rey, his eyes full of disapproval and concern. He looked the epitome of a chastising older brother.

                “Wait, Ryan, I thought you could only hear thoughts. You can see images as well?” Clark asked.

                “Not usually. Well, kind of. It’s more like if you’re looking at something, I know what you’re looking at, but I can’t actually see that thing. I only know the details because the other person knows the details, does that make sense?”

                “But you can see images in Rey’s mind?” Lex’s brain was turning over this idea like a complex math problem. They had already established that Rey’s mind was different than most people’s, given that she could block out Ryan’s attempts to read her mind when she wanted and that she had somehow called out to him when she was in the woods, but this revealed a new facet to the riddle and he was determined to solve it.

                Ryan looked over at Rey. “Yeah. I don’t know how, but I can see her memories as if I’m there.”

                “One of the other ‘gifts’ that I acquired during my time in Kandor,” Rey explained. Though her statement didn’t do much in the way of ‘explaining’.

                “So, space-time travel, speed-healing, and what,” Clark had no idea what to call her ability to control her own mind, “advanced brain function?”

                “Essentially. The speed-healing was kind of already there, a side-effect of the meteor strike. Lex, I think you know what I’m talking about.” Lex nodded, though the two of them had never previously discussed their mutual ability to heal faster than the average human after being exposed to the meteor rocks. “My ‘advanced brain function’ was actually the fault of Seg, or rather, Seg’s grandfather.”

                “I don’t understand,” Clark said.

                “You’re not alone there, Clark,” Lex said. He tried to reign in his bitterness, but it leaked into his voice. Clark’s lies he had understood, Rey’s, however, he was having a harder time forgiving.

                Rey sighed, understanding Lex’s anger but not knowing how to convince him that she had kept the truth from him for similar reasons to Clark: she had wanted to protect him. She had had no idea how she traveled back and forth between Krypton and Earth, no idea who was pulling the strings and why. For all she knew she could have put him in danger by telling him. More than that though, there was fear. Fear that he wouldn’t believe her. Fear that he would think she was crazy. Trust that someone would never do anything to hurt you and trust that they would have enough faith in you to not act to protect you were two very different things. Rey had feared that if she told Lex the truth, especially as they got older and entered their teen years, he would try to get her help. That would only have ended badly – both for her and for their friendship.

                She decided the best she could do for right now was to tell him the truth unflinchingly and let him sort through at his own pace. Perhaps he would forgive her eventually.

                “Ryan, maybe you’d like to go back down to the library and read some of Lex’s comics?” Rey suggested kindly. This wasn’t a story for a child’s ears.

                Ryan recognized that he was being dismissed and immediately protested, “I’ll just hear it all in Lex’s mind anyway! Why can’t I stay?”

                “Ryan, I think it’s a good idea if you go,” Clark said gently. He sensed that whatever Rey was about to tell them, it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

                The young boy looked at his hero, feeling betrayed, and slowly left the room, sulking. He listened hard for Lex’s thoughts, but there was a wall around them now too. Clearly, Rey was going to do whatever it took to keep him from hearing what she had to say. He bitterly made his way down to the library, feeling rejected and young and excluded.

                Rey frowned as she watched Ryan’s exit, but she knew he was too young to hear the details of death and torture. Her protective instinct was strong, and Ryan was not an exemption. She was glad Clark had supported her decision; she didn’t know if Ryan would have left willingly if she had been the only one to try and persuade him.

                “Now,” Lex said once Ryan was gone, “tell us what happened.”

                _It had started off like any normal day. Rey had woken up confused and disoriented as she always seemed to on Krypton before she remembered where she was and the more disturbing fact that she had no idea how to get back to her own planet and her own time. Her ‘ability’ had never felt more like a curse than it did in those few moments after waking._

_There were four of them cramped into the small apartment above Kem’s bar. Adam was asleep on the ground next to her. Sometime the night he had taken all the covers. ‘Jerk.’_

_She stepped outside for some air, not that the air was much fresher down here. Only Ranked Kryptonians merited clean air. The air outside the protective dome of Kandor was breathable, but only for short periods of time. It was too thin, like trying to catch your breath at the top of a mountain. Inside, it was filtered from the top down, meaning that every so often even the Rankless received a cool breeze of freshly filtered oxygen. She leaned against the wall of the bar, closing her eyes and breathing deeply as one such breeze flowed through the empty street. It didn’t last long, quickly becoming overpowered by the smell of rot and Kryptonian waste, which smelled remarkably like human waste, just with an added stench of old cheese. Taking the time to think before the rest of the population got up, Rey kept her eyes closed and tried to ignore how the smell of Section Nineteen irritated her nose. It was still dark out. Light too was carefully controlled. Between the planet’s ever widening ellipsis around the sun and the omnipresent cloud cover overhead, light had to be collected at all hours and filtered back into Kandor at the command of the Voice of Rao. It was an inventive collection and refraction system, created by one of Seg’s ancestors ages ago when the problem first began to arise, but now the city’s theocracy was abusing its power, using the limited resources to control its populace. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ Rey thought bitterly. Never was that phrase truer than in Kandor. With the curfew, she was the only one on the street and Rey took a moment to enjoy the blissful solitude. She opened her eyes. It had been ages since she’d been alone, always surrounded by crowds or at least the three men currently sleeping in the apartment above. It was nice to enjoy a moment of peace. Or so she thought until she saw movement out of the corner of her eye to her left._

_When she looked, she saw no one, but she felt like she was being watched. She stepped away from the wall and headed to where she had heard the noise, braced for an attack. Suddenly a Saggitarai grabbed her from behind. She threw the soldier to the ground over her shoulder and started to run. She yelled into her comm for the others to wake up, but quickly ran into two more soldiers. She backed up, only to hit a solid wall of armor. She dropped her comm in the struggle and the soldier ground the device into dust with their heel. The Saggitarai in front of her lifted their weapon and shot her between the eyes with a tranquilizer and she was unconscious before she could make another move._

_When she woke up, she was strapped to a chair, restraints making it impossible to move her limbs or even turn her head. She still felt groggy from the tranquilizer, but did her best to take in her surroundings. It looked like she was underground. Cold seeped in through the walls and she fought off a shiver. They must be in the Outlands, in some long-abandoned outpost. She strained her ears and heard footsteps approaching, clearly Saggitarai from the sound of armored boots hitting the floor in even, quick steps. She counted three at least._

_She was prepared when they entered the room. Two of them had their helmets off, one male, one female, and they approached her with malice. The third moved silently to stand in the corner of the room, watching. She wondered how they had stolen the Saggitarai armor, how many soldiers they’d had to kill. Clearly, these people were Black Zero. The woman wordlessly walked over to the table beside her and lifted something off it with great precision. Rey struggled against her bonds, trying to get loose, trying to see what the woman was holding, but they held fast._

_The woman held a cylindrical tube in front of her face that glowed a faint blue. At the end was an insect that Rey had never seen before. She struggled harder, knowing that whatever the insect was, it wasn’t good._

_The woman lowered the cylinder until the insect was touching Rey’s face and Rey reacted on instinct, pulling away even though there was nowhere to go. The insect dropped from the cylinder and began crawling over Rey’s skin, finding her left nostril and crawling inside._

_Rey screamed at the pain. She writhed in her chair as the insect invaded her nose, her brain. It was disgusting and excruciating and it felt like the pain would never end. Her brain was on fire. Eventually, the female ‘Saggitarai’ put the cylinder to Rey’s ear and the insect crawled out and was gently placed back in its container. Rey slumped in the chair, panting. Blood oozed from her nose and into her mouth._

_“If you’re going to torture me for information,” she wheezed, “at least ask me some questions.”_

_“We weren’t torturing you,” said the third soldier. He stepped forward and lifted the face shield of his helmet._

_“Oh really? That’s wonderful. I feel so much less tortured now.”_

_The man was unfazed by her sarcasm. “That was a test. We had to make sure you weren’t a sentry.” The nameless soldier’s explanation did nothing to ease Rey’s anxiety. How did this man know about the sentries? How much did he know? Perhaps she had been wrong about them being Black Zero._

_“You passed,” he added unnecessarily. “Now, tell me what you know about Brainiac.”_

                “Brainiac?” Clark questioned.

                “It’s a long story. Let me finish.”

                _“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rey said brazenly, casting a wary glance out of the corner of her eye at the offending insect, hoping they weren’t going to use it on her again._

_“There is no time for games. Brainiac is coming and all of Krypton is in danger. And, since Kal-El is yet to be born, that means the universe is at stake.”_

“Wait, how is the whole universe at stake if I’m not born?”

                “Clark, if you keep interrupting me, I’m never going to finish the story.”

                “Sorry.”

_Rey stiffened. This man knew more than she realized. Much more._

_“Kal-El?” She pretended to rack her battered brain. “Nope, sorry. Don’t know anyone by that name.”_

_The man threw off his helmet in anger and it slammed against the wall with a reverberating bang. “DON’T lie to me! I know you’re not Kryptonian, I know you are from Earth, and I know you know about Brainiac.” He took a deep breath. “So, let’s try again, shall we? What, exactly, do you know about Brainiac?”_

_Rey spat on the floor at his feet. Her spit mixed with blood, making it a dark pink stain on the grey stone. The man to her right reacted swiftly, poking his taser into her side and holding the electricity there until a roar from the third soldier, obviously their leader, caused him to stop and step back._

_“Sorry, sir. She shouldn’t disrespect you like that.”_

_“I appreciate your loyalty,” the man purred, stepping closer “but Rey is off limits. No one, and I mean no one, touches her without my express permission.” With that, he snapped the man’s neck._

_Rey watched with subdued horror as the man fell, almost in slow motion, dead. She stared at his body for a long moment._

_“So that’s what you do, huh?” she asked, surprised at how calm her voice was. “You kill anyone you think is in your way?”_

_“I kill anyone I_ know _is in my way.” The man’s harsh words made her heart pick up pace in her chest. Right now, she was in his way and if she wasn’t careful, she would end up with a broken neck too._

_“You’re too late. The sentry already uploaded the information to Brainiac. He’s coming.”_

_“Brainiac is already here, you fool,” he spat. “Is the sentry dead?” Rey was silent. “Is. The sentry. Dead.”_

_“No. She’s alive.”_

_The man roared again, his hands rubbing over his short hair in frustration. “Why not? The sentry has to be destroyed before it infects another, higher ranking host.”_

_“Destroyed? She’s a person, not a thing! She’s still alive!” Rey struggled at her bonds again in vain. Rhom was currently at the Fortress, being cared for by Seg’s grandfather’s hologram. If he couldn’t save her, no one could._

_“That_ thing,” _he thundered, emphasizing the word, “needs to be destroyed before all of Krypton is lost. One life is worth the lives of billions.”_

_Rey considered his words. How many times had she heard that excuse? One life in exchange for everyone else’s safety. There was some logic to it, which made it such a seductive lie. If one life was expendable, why not all of them? Rey was not going to let Rhom die just because this madman wanted the parasite that had taken over her body. Even if she did give up Rhom’s location, Seg would never forgive her. Rhom was family to him and he was determined to save her, no matter the cost. Just as he was determined to save Lyta from the death sentence meant for him._

_Rey set her jaw against the enraged man in front of her. “No.”_

_“No? May I remind you, you are in no place to refuse me.”_

_“Obviously I’m important to you for some reason, otherwise you wouldn’t have killed your man there. So you’re not going to kill me. Even if I refuse to give you Rhom.”_

_“You mean nothing to me,” he whispered harshly, leaning his face close to hers. To demonstrate his point, he picked up the abandoned taser on the ground and put it to Rey’s abdomen, flicking the switch and watching her writhe and scream. When he was satisfied he’d made his point, he flicked the taser off and threw it back on the floor._

_Rey tried to curl in on herself, fighting nausea. “Who are you?” she panted. “How do you know about Kal? Are you human too?”_

_“I am no more human than you are Kryptonian. As to how I know what I know, that is my business. I’m going to try this one more time. Tell me where the sentry is so I can destroy it.”_

_Again, Rey refused. The man leapt forward and ripped off her binds, grabbing her by the throat and lifting her high in the air._

_“If you cannot provide the information I need, you are useless to me. Perhaps one of your friends will be more…cooperative.”_

_The thought of him going after the others made Rey’s blood freeze. ‘No,’ she thought desperately. ‘Leave them alone.’_

_“Fine,” she gasped. “I’ll tell you.”_

_He dropped her unceremoniously to the floor and she collapsed, trying to draw as much oxygen into her lungs as possible. Everything hurt. But now she was free to move. She saw the taser lying a few feet away and silently began to plan her attack._

_Before she could move, the female soldier behind her grabbed her by the hair and yanked her, hard, back into the chair. Rey kneed her in the side, aiming for one of the Saggitarai armor’s weak points. The woman grunted, but didn’t relent. Rey tried again, this time leaving her knee there and grabbing hold of the woman’s head so she could lift herself out of the chair and onto the woman’s back. She wrapped her arm around the woman’s throat, squeezing tightly._

_“Enough!” The taser was in her side again and Rey dropped to the ground, twitching. She heard the woman gasp for breath._

_“I told you I don’t have time for games. Tell me where to find the sentry or I go after Seg next.”_

_“You said Kal-El is important. You can’t kill Seg.”_

_“Kill him? No. But I can hurt him.”_

_Rey pushed herself up from the floor weakly. Her abused body protested, but she managed to get shakily to her feet. She looked the man in the eyes._

_“Hurt Seg and I’ll make sure you regret it.”_

_“Oh?” he replied mildly. “And how do you suppose to do that?”_

_Rey hesitated and the man pounced, “You can’t. You have no power. I am the one in control.” He used his height to loom over her. “You’re out of options, Rey. And you’re out of time. Tell me now or I’ll kill you and make Seg tell me himself.”_

_Rey battled with herself. She knew she couldn’t give up Rhom, but she had no idea how to get out of this. Escape wasn’t an option. Fighting wasn’t an option. She had already stalled as long as she could. There was nothing left for it; she would have to give her life to protect Rhom. She knew he would go after Seg, but she knew Seg would survive. He had to because his grandson was going to save the universe._

_Resolved, Rey punched the man in his arrogant, smug face. It was rather satisfying._

_His head snapped back, but he remained upright. “So that’s what you’ve decided? You have chosen wrong. But who am I to deny your death wish?” He raised the taser and this time, when she fell, the taser remained in contact. Rey had never felt pain like it. Every nerve was on fire. It was worse than the insect crawling around in her brain. It was worse than anything she had ever experienced._

_‘I’m sorry, Lex’ she thought as the world started going black at the edges. ‘Truly I am.’_

_Darkness._

_Voices. They sounded familiar, in the way sunlight is familiar, or the smell of cut grass. So far away. She wanted to reach out to them, but her arms felt like lead._

_Darkness again._

_“I’ve never seen biology like this. Extraordinary.”_

_“Just fix her, please.”_

_Silence._

_Darkness._

_Then, “The prolonged electrical stimulation had permanently damaged her nervous system. Her brain function was nonexistent. There’s no reason that she should even be alive right now, especially given her human biology. I don’t understand it.”_

_“But she’s alive?”_

_“Yes, she’s alive.”_

_“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in there?”_

_“Well, I had to resort to some…extreme measures to save her. She will never be the same, I’m afraid.”_

_“What does that mean?”_

_Darkness. Silence._

_Then, light._

_“She’s awake!”_

“What did they do to you? What did he mean ‘she will never be the same again’?” Lex demanded answers.

                “He blended my DNA with Kryptonian genetic material,” Rey explained. “Kryptonians had developed the ability to grow stem cells and use them to repair major cell damage, but, obviously, the technique had never been used on a human before. That, combined with the effect of the kryptonite during the meteor strike, caused a very…unique reaction.”

                “Define ‘unique’.”

                “For one, I developed heightened senses. My already advanced healing abilities increased. To the point where I age much more slowly than humans, even more slowly than Kryptonians. Except Kal-El, of course.”

                “What do you mean?” Clark suddenly remembered Cassandra’s vision. Rows and rows of gravestones, all of them belonging to people he loved, now long gone and him left alone to mourn.

                “Kryptonians live much longer than humans. The average life span of a Kryptonian on Krypton is about two hundred years, which in Earth years is about six hundred years old. That’s not calculating for the effects of the yellow sun, which could potentially extend that life period.”

                “Six hundred years.” Clark’s voice sounded hollow to his own ears.

                Lex looked at his friend, his heart breaking for him. Clark loved so fiercely and so purely, it was hard to imagine him living what to a human would be multiple lifetimes, alone with no one to receive that love or return it. Lex wondered how much of Clark’s life he’d be alive for, if his own advanced healing abilities would grant him a few extra years on this Earth. He doubted he would live long enough to see if his healing abilities applied to old age.

                “Clark,” Rey said gently, trying to reach through Clark’s terrifyingly blank expression. When he didn’t react, she called sharply, “Kal-El!”

                Clark reacted to his birth name on instinct, snapping back to the present from the graveyard of Cassandra’s vision, so full yet so empty at the same time.

                “Clark,” Rey tried again, now that he was paying attention, “this is not a curse. You are destined for great things.”

                “Like saving the universe?” Clark asked skeptically. Most days he had trouble saving Smallville. He couldn’t imagine saving the whole universe.

                “Yes.” Clark stared at her; she looked fierce and wild in that moment, like a goddess called down to earth. Her hair was clean, but still untamed as it flowed over her shoulders. The light from the fire made her eyes burn gold and cast an eerie glow over her dark skin. Despite his doubts, Clark believed her.

                “One thing I do know, something Adam told me about your future, is that you and Lex will survive it together.”

                Lex looked from Rey to Clark and back again. “I think I’m missing something,” he said. “I understand Clark living hundreds of years, but how the hell would I live that long? I’m only human.”

                “I think the meteor strike affected you more strongly than it did me. Or anyone else in Smallville, for that matter. We were at the site of his crash, not one of the actual meteors. I tried to protect you, but in doing so, I think I made it worse.”

                “What do you mean?”

                “I’m sure you may have noticed, kryptonite reacts to its surroundings. It makes whatever it interacts with stronger, with the exception of Clark. While the world was exploding, all I could think of was how I wanted to protect you forever. I think the kryptonite took that a little too literally.”

                Clark thought about all the meteor mutants he had stopped over the past few months since starting high school. Rey was right; every single time, the kryptonite had enhanced some part of them to give them special abilities. It also happened to make most of them cruel, selfish, and callous. ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ For some reason, it was Lex’s voice in his head quoting that.

                “Does that mean you’re immortal too?” Lex asked. If he thought about it, a world without Rey seemed bleak and grey, but he didn’t want to think about it.

                “Not exactly. And neither are either of you. Death comes for all in the end, no matter who you are. Even solar-powered Kryptonian superheroes and Kryptonite billionaire world leaders.”

                 Lex and Clark just stared at her. Lex was stuck on the words ‘world leader’ while Clark was terrified at his own relief at the knowledge that one day, eventually, he would be able to die.

                Suddenly Rey laughed, clutching at her ribs as the movement caused them pain.

                “What’s so funny?”

                “I’m sorry, it’s just, I just realized,” she said between gasps of air, “Clark, you’re Achilles, and, Lex, you’re Patroclus. And then I was imagining Clark in a dress. My mind kind of got away from me. I think it may be the pain killers.”

                Clark looked at Lex, lost. How were he and Lex Achilles and Patroclus? Hadn’t Patroclus died a tragic death in place of Achilles? Didn’t Achilles then kill a river god in his grief and march brazenly into the battlefield where he died? Maybe it was the morbidity of Clark’s thoughts at the moment, but he failed to see the humor. The image of himself in a dress though, he could see how that would be humorous.

                Lex was obviously thinking the same thing. He looked Clark up and down and started grinning, causing Clark to grin back.

                “What do you say, Lex, shall I put on a dress and twirl for you?”

                “That depends, Clark, are you going to wear heels to go with it?”

                The three of them collapsed into giggles, the laughter healing some of the wounds from the day and releasing the tension they had all been holding. Once they started, they found it hard to stop, since every time they looked at each other they were reminded of the image of Clark in heels and a dress and collapsed once again into a fit of laughter.

                Finally, they settled down and caught their breath. Rey felt exhausted, her body sapping her energy in its attempt to heal itself, and her eyes kept drifting closed without her permission. She knew she had a lot more explaining to do, but she doubted she could form a coherent sentence right now, let alone a whole new segment of the saga that was the past twelve, complicated years.

                “Come on,” Lex said, standing up. “You need to sleep. We’ve probably been pushing it, trying to get answers. You only just got out of the hospital yesterday.”

                “It’s okay, Lex,” she said, “I was fine until a few minutes ago. Tired, but not on the verge of passing out.”

                “Still, let’s get you to bed.” He extended his arm and helped Rey to her feet.

                “Do you need any help?” Clark asked.

                “We’re okay, thank you. Just wait down here and I’ll be back in a minute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Achilles and Patroclus are characters in Homer's The Iliad. It is widely assumed (correctly in my opinion) that the two were lovers. When Achilles refuses to participate in the battle of Troy, Patroclus dons his armor and dies on the battlefield. Achilles is driven nearly mad in his grief and he eventually dies, pierced by arrows, and joins his love in Elysium.  
> What Rey is referring to when she says she's picturing Clark in a dress, is a scene from the epic where Achilles disguises himself as a woman. He is considered by all the men present to be the most beautiful woman on the island, but Patroclus immediately recognizes him for who he is.


	10. Trust is a Two-Way Street

As Clark waited for Lex’s return, he absentmindedly scanned the mansion for Ryan. He was getting much better at controlling his x-ray vision, no longer seeing bones when he wanted to see people. Locating the library, Clark took in the flat, colorless vision of the room. He saw Ryan curled up in a chair, intently reading a comic. He seemed to have forgotten his previous hurt and was focused only on his fictional hero. Satisfied that Ryan was alright, Clark glanced around the rest of the house. He watched Lex ease Rey into bed and pull the covers over her tenderly. He squinted his eyes and checked her injuries. They looked better than before, but he was concerned by the lethargic beat of her heart. They really should have given her more time to rest before interrogating her.

                Clark looked away and his vision focused again on the room he was in. He walked over to the window and watched as the first snowflakes of the season drifted serenely to the ground. Clark was surprised to see them; it must have been colder outside than he realized. He remembered seeing Ryan shiver in his thin pajamas as he set him down by the tree. Clark should have paid more attention. He was growing more and more impervious to weather and he was going to have to start being more careful if he was going to avoid the world knowing that he was an alien.

                An alien. From Krypton. Which is gone, along with his entire people. Except, didn’t Rey say that he wasn’t alone? She implied that others had survived. What others? Where were they? In all the chaos of today he hadn’t had a chance to ask.

                The snow hit the ground and disappeared. It would be a while before it started sticking. He watched as snowflake after snowflake melted into nothing. For the second time, he wished he had Ryan’s ability. He wished he could see into Rey’s memories and get a glimpse of the home he never had. It sounded like something out of a dystopian novel: Kandor, the planet’s last stronghold, the Voice of Rao, its tyrant. He wondered about Seg. His grandfather. He had so many questions, questions whose answers lay in the mind of the woman now sleeping upstairs.

                  He listened to Lex’s footsteps as he descended the stairs. Their relationship was forever changed now that Lex knew the truth, a change that Clark feared and welcomed at the same time.

                Lex entered the room quietly and Clark didn’t turn from his spot by the window. The snow was falling more heavily now and the ground was coated in a light dusting of white. Lex joined him and the two stood side by side, watching the snow fall, waiting for the other to speak first.

                It was Clark who finally broke the silence.

                “Cassandra showed me a vision before she died. It was of me, sitting in a graveyard full of everyone I had ever loved. I was alone.” Clark ignored how his voice broke on that word. “The graveyard spread out as far as I could see; I don’t think it even had an end. I saw my parents’ names, my friends’…but I didn’t see yours. I didn’t think about it at the time because the vision was so upsetting, but I think she knew that I would outlive everyone. Everyone except you.” He turned to see Lex staring back at him, eyes open and unguarded like Clark had never seen them.

                “I told you our friendship was going to be the stuff of legends, Clark. Looks like I was right.”

                “Yeah,” Clark sighed. He looked back out the window at the accumulating snow. Forever seemed a little less daunting knowing that he wouldn’t be alone. He leaned his shoulder against Lex’s and Lex leaned back into him, sharing warmth and support.

                The silence between them was comfortable and neither felt the need to break it. The past few days had been so mentally exhausting, both Lex and Clark took the moment to let their minds be blissfully blank as they watched the world be silently blanketed by pure white snow. Tomorrow would be a new day full of new surprises, new questions and answers, but trouble shouldn’t be borrowed, and tomorrow’s problems would remain tomorrow’s.

                Eventually they mutually agreed that they had spent enough time watching the snow fall and they turned back to the study and walked to the middle of the room. Lex knew it was time for Clark and Ryan to leave, but for some reason he didn’t want them to go.

                “I suppose we should get going. I told my parents we’d only be gone a few hours, though I suspect they knew it was going to be longer.” Clark sighed. It was time he told his parents that Lex knew about his secret. He wasn’t looking forward to that conversation. “It’s lucky today is Saturday. I doubt they would have let us come if it meant I had to skip school, even to find out more about Rey. We can come over tomorrow and talk more, if that’s okay with you?” He said the last part as a question, realizing that he was dangerously close to imposing on Lex’s hospitality.

                “Of course it is, Clark. You’re welcome here any time you want, you always have been. Ryan too.” Lex meant it. Even before today, when Clark had been keeping so many secrets from him it nearly drove Lex to insanity, he welcomed Clark’s presence in the mansion any time.

                “Thank you,” Clark said quietly. “I’m not sure if I’ve said this already, but you’re a really good friend. I don’t know many people that would have put up with me as long as you have, or would have forgiven me so easily. Even Pete, if I told him the truth, I don’t think would have handled it as well.”

                Honesty. It felt foreign to both of them, but cathartic. Still, Lex didn’t know how to respond to Clark’s words of gratitude and friendship, so he just cleared his throat and said, “Well, I imagine having an alien best friend would be strange to some, but my life is already pretty strange so it wasn’t that big of an adjustment.”

                Clark laughed at that. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. Though I can’t imagine even the life of a billionaire being stranger than an alien from another planet living on a farm in Kansas.”

                “You’d be surprised,” Lex joked, though Clark was right. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this particular brand of weirdness. And he had a feeling they had only just scratched the surface.

                Clark just looked at him oddly, trying to imagine what secrets lay in Lex’s past that could be more alien than, well, an alien. He was getting more used to that word the more the day progressed.

                Ryan suddenly appeared at the door. He still looked a little betrayed from earlier, but less upset than when he’d first left for the library.

                “I heard it was time to go.”

                “Yeah, buddy. Mom and dad are probably starting to wonder if Lex kidnapped us.” He shot a quick smile at Lex at his joke.

                “Careful, Clark, they might actually think the big, bad Lex Luthor did just that.”

                “Aw, come on. I think my parents have warmed up to you quite a bit lately,” he said, grinning at the memory of Martha Kent mothering Lex. “I doubt they’d think you kidnapped us. Well, maybe they would once they find out I told you, but I think they’ll get over it.” He sobered at the thought of his parents’ reactions to him telling Lex. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was more scared of telling them that Lex knew his secret than he had been of actually telling Lex.

                “Will you get in a lot of trouble?” Lex looked guilty, as though whatever problems would arise between Clark and his parents were his fault.

                “Nothing I can’t handle,” Clark assured him. “It was my decision and I knew what I was doing. I don’t regret it.”

                Lex was secretly relieved by Clark’s answer. He had been afraid that Clark would regret telling him ever since he first declared to Ryan that Lex was trustworthy. He thought of the room filled with evidence about Clark, the destroyed Porsche, the animated recreation of the accident, all the files on everything weird that happened in Smallville. He had told Clark that he would stop investigating him, and at the time he meant it, but his own damned curiosity made him break that promise. Now there was no need for that room any more, but it still filled Lex with guilt. He didn’t deserve Clark’s trust, no matter how much Lex valued it.

                “It’s okay, Lex.” Ryan’s voice started him out of his self-pity. “I think Clark will understand. You should just show him.”

                “Show me what?”

                Damn that mind reading kid. Now Lex had no choice. He sighed deeply, accepting his fate, and gestured for the two to follow him. To Lex, it felt like a march to the gallows. He hoped Ryan was right and that Clark would understand. If not, this friendship could end as quickly as it began.

                Lex pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. It swung open on well-oiled hinges and Lex stepped inside, leading the way to his own shame. He flipped on the light and there was no hiding the evidence; it was all displayed clearly in the bright florescent light. The Porsche sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by desks and file cabinets. The car crash simulation played on a loop on a monitor to the right, the red man falling over the rail again and again. There were pictures on the wall of Clark, of some of the meteor mutants Clark had stopped, of the blur on the security footage Lex swore was Clark. Lex stood to the side as Clark silently took everything in. He walked around the room, touching folders, flipping some open to read their contents. He studied the pictures on the walls, recognizing some from Chloe’s Wall of Weird.

                “You promised you would stop investigating me.” Clark’s voice was detached. It wasn’t even accusatory, just…distant.

                “I know. I know and I was going to, but I just…couldn’t help myself.” Lex shrugged helplessly. He wanted to explain, to make Clark understand, but how could he?

                Clark nodded. He didn’t say anything, just kept looking around the room. He opened some of the drawers of the file cabinets and flicked through the files. Occasionally he would pull one out and glance at its contents before putting it back. All the while Lex felt himself growing more and more anxious. He realized this is probably similar to how Clark felt when Lex didn’t respond to his confession earlier about being an alien.

                Clark didn’t know how to feel. His first thought, after panic, was anger. Lex had promised him, had said _to his face_ that he would stop investigating Clark. All this evidence mounted against him could be used to put Clark in some lab somewhere to be experimented on for the rest of his life. Or worse. They could find a way to neutralize the threat that Clark could potentially be. It was everything he had ever feared, stored in a room in Lex's mansion. He was furious. Yet, the more he looked through the seemingly endless files, Clark realized that he wasn't actually angry at Lex; he was angry about the lies, yes, but he was also angry at himself for letting this happen. He had always known that Lex was more intelligent than anyone he'd ever known, had seen the curiosity in his eyes for life's mysteries. Clark had done a terrible job of hiding his own 'mystery' from his best friend, partially due to circumstance, partially due to an unconscious desire for Lex to figure it out on his own and absolve him of both the weight of lying and the fear of telling the truth. But this...this was madness. The amount of obsession that would drive a man to create a room like this, drive him to seek out every scrap of information he could about someone, had to have a cause deeper than curiosity. Clark realized that his secrets really had been driving his friend insane.

                “I’m sorry,” Clark finally said.

                “I – what?” Lex was bewildered. “You’re sorry? Clark, I don’t understand. You’re not angry?”

                “Yes, I'm angry. I'm angry that you lied to me. But I figure I kind of corner the market on lying to my best friend, so I can't really judge." He gave Lex a small, self-deprecating smile. "More than angry though, I’m concerned and I’m upset. Lex, this…this isn’t normal.” He swept his arms out, gesturing to the room as a whole. “The obsession you had with finding out the truth, it would have driven you mad if I had never told you. I didn’t realize how badly I was hurting you by lying to you. I’m sorry.”

                Both Lex and Ryan stood there stunned. Neither of them had expected Clark to react quite like that. Ryan had known that Clark would have forgiven Lex, but he had no response to Clark taking the blame. He wished, for the first time, that he could see inside Clark's head too so he could know what he was thinking. Lex felt like maybe the world had been tipped off its axis and that’s why the past few days hadn’t felt real. Only Clark Kent could take something like this, something that would have justifiably made anyone else turn their back in anger and cut off all ties, and turn it around on himself. Lex shook his head.

                “Clark, I –” Lex didn’t know what to say. Thank you?  I’m sorry?

                “I want you to destroy this room.” Lex had never heard Clark sound so commanding before. He supposed it was another thing about Clark that had always been hidden away. “It’s dangerous and if anyone else found out about it, it could put me, my family, everyone in danger. Including you.”

                Lex nodded. “Of course.”

                “And no more lies, okay? Trust is a two-way street and I promise not to keep anything from you so long as you can promise me the same. Deal?”

                “Deal,” Lex replied immediately. The look Clark was giving him was intense, but Lex returned it unflinchingly.

                Clark nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now, I really want to get out of this room and Ryan and I honestly should be headed home. I wasn’t kidding about my parents starting to worry.”

                Lex lead them back to the hallway, carefully locking the door behind them, and the three of them walked back to the main entrance of the mansion.

                “Clark,” Lex started when they had almost reached the front door, “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for lying to you. I’m sorry that I kept investigating you even when I told you I wouldn’t. You said that I’ve been a good friend to you, but I really haven’t.”

                Clark put his hand on Lex’s shoulder. “You may have lied to me, but I also lied to you and we both had our reasons. You’ve still been a good friend to me otherwise, and I’m not going to let this affect our friendship. I think we should both try to put the lies behind us and focus on the future, don’t you?”

                Lex smiled at him, feeling the tension leave his body and warmth spread from where Clark’s hand was resting on his shoulder. He hadn’t lost his best friend.

                “Yeah, Clark, I think that’s a great idea.”

                Lex watched as Clark lifted Ryan as though he weighed nothing. Ryan held onto Clark’s neck and whooped with glee. Clark turned his head and winked at Lex and then suddenly they were gone. Lex blinked as his brain struggled to process what no human mind was designed to process. Lex was certain that he would never get used to seeing Clark use his abilities. Not that he minded.

                Lex couldn’t get over the fact that Clark wasn’t angry with him, that he’d even felt responsible for Lex’s obsessive investigation. That kind of purity, that kind of goodness, simply was not human.

                ‘My best friend is an alien.’ Lex needed a drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so after some thinking I went back and edited this chapter. Clark may be an alien, but anger is a secondary emotion and is often caused by fear. The Room would be everything he'd ever feared...but it was safe because it was Lex's.


	11. Early morning discussions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter to show a little of Lex's perspective the next morning before The Talk with Mr. and Mrs. Kent.

After Clark and Ryan left, Lex had tried to get some work done in his office, staring down at document after document as though by the sheer force of his will he could make them calculate themselves so he could be done with the charade. Letters and numbers danced in front of his vision, but he couldn’t seem to make sense of them. It was like they were written in code.

Or more like his mind was too preoccupied with other thoughts to process any more information today. He flipped through the latest merger agreement with one of the top pharmaceutical companies in Japan, his mind wandering. He still had so many questions. Questions about Clark, about Ryan, about Rey. They all tumbled over one another, each begging for his attention first like overexcited children. He pulled out a piece of paper and began to write them down in an effort to order his mind. The questions ranged from the glaringly obvious (Why hadn’t Rey told him?) to the scientifically curious (How did Clark’s biology work? How was Ryan able to read minds?) to the inane and obscure (Did Clark ever sweat?). He wrote them all down as they came to him and he filled the front of the page, flipping it over to the back. When he was done, he pulled out another piece of paper and reordered the questions in order of importance. There were over a hundred in all and he had even left out some of the more ridiculous ones (Did Clark even have to brush his teeth if his bones didn’t decay?). He had expected the questions to be balanced between Rey and Clark, with a few scattered ones about Ryan, but he was surprised to find that, as usual, all his curiosity centered around Clark.

Lex looked up from his list to discover that it had grown dark around him. The sun had set, leaving the room dappled by moonlight that filtered red, purple, and white on the dark floor. How long had he sat there? He stretched his arms above his head, groaning as his back popped and straightened. Rey must still be asleep; he couldn’t hear her moving around. He walked upstairs to check on her.

She was on her side on the left side of the bed, nearly falling off, clutching a pillow to her chest. She looked so _young_. It made Lex feel ancient, as though he’d aged a thousand years in her absence. He wanted to crawl into bed next to her like they used to when they were children and that kind of thing was still appropriate. He just wanted to wrap his arms around her, to feel her breathing and know that she was safe, that she was real, that she wasn’t going to disappear again.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest for a few more moments before quietly closing the door and heading to his own bedroom. This room was the only one in the house that no one was allowed into – other than the secret one he had shown Clark and Ryan earlier –  and not even the maids were allowed to clean it. His bed was unmade, his clothes strewn around the room in disorder. Maybe it was some childish desire to rebel against his father, who had always insisted upon order and cleanliness and had never allowed Lex’s room to be anything less than perfect. Just like Lex himself. Whatever the reason, Lex regarded his bedroom as his place of solace, where he could be free to be imperfect. Here, no one would care if everything wasn’t in its place. Here, no one could hear if he broke down under the stress of his father. Certainly no one would know if he slept to one side of the bed, curled into himself, wishing that he had someone to lay on the other side so he could fall asleep to the sound of their deep, even breathing.

The next morning, Lex was surprised to find that he had fallen asleep at all. He remembered discarding his clothes and crawling into bed, before staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. Then suddenly his alarm was yelling at him and he jerked out of his dream with the unpleasant feeling of falling from a very high place. He turned off the incessant beeping and pulled himself into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He rubbed his head, trying to remember what he’d been dreaming before his alarm clock so rudely woke him. There had been clouds? He had felt like he was flying, but he hadn’t been alone. Before he could delve any more into the memory, the dream faded away and he sighed, counting it as a loss.

Lex slowly stood and walked over to the bathroom. It was early, too early for anyone except farmers and, apparently, multi-billionaire businessmen to be awake on a Sunday. He showered and brushed his teeth with his eyes half-closed. He may have gotten some amount of sleep last night, but clearly not enough. He dressed in the same daze. He considered crawling back into bed, but he had never done that a day in his life and he wasn’t going to start now.

On his way downstairs, Lex stopped by Rey’s room to check on her. She was laying on her back now, sprawled across the bed, her mouth partially open. Her hair was splayed around her head, untamed and wild. He smiled gently at the sight.

Downstairs, Lex picked up the list he’d made last night, reviewing the order he’d decided on and making a few corrections. Was it more important to know why kryptonite affected Clark the way it did or to know what other abilities he’d develop? If he knew _why_ kryptonite hurt Clark, maybe he could figure out how to prevent it from doing so. If he knew what abilities Clark would develop, they’d be better prepared and he could help him control them as they came. He kept the order they were in; protecting Clark was more important than his abilities.

His phone rang just as he set down the corrected list and he answered it with his usual, “Lex Luthor.”

“Lex? It’s Jonathan Kent.” That was not what Lex had expected this morning. “I hope I didn’t wake you, I know it’s early.”

“Mr. Kent, good morning. No, you didn’t wake me. What can I do for you?”

“Well, my wife and I were wondering if you and your friend would like to come over for breakfast? There’s some things we need to discuss.”

“Of course. Rey is still asleep at the moment, but I’ll see if she feels up to coming. Either way, I’ll be there,” he promised. As much as the idea of a sit down with the Kents filled him with more fear and apprehension than even talking to Lionel, he knew it wasn’t something he should, or could, put off.

“Wonderful. We’ll, uh, we’ll see you here soon then.” Lex said goodbye and hung up the strange phone call. He had a foreboding sense that Clark wouldn’t be present for the conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Kent. Jonathan had purposefully said "my wife and I" rather than asking him to join the whole family. Besides, it was a Sunday, and Clark was likely to be unwilling to even consider the possibility of getting out of bed before nine without the immediate chance of the world ending.

It was going to be another long day.


	12. Bitterness, love, and truth

                The conversation with his parents went pretty much exactly as Clark expected.

                “You told him _what_!?” his father fumed, furious beyond reason. Clark had just sat there calmly, waiting for him to finish his rant. Ryan had quickly fled to hide in Clark’s room until the conversation (read: argument) was over. “Clark, you know how dangerous your secret is. No matter how much Lex has proved himself to be a good friend to you, you had no idea how he would react to this information. With his power, he could expose you to the whole world! He could use your weaknesses against you, send you off to some laboratory to be experimented on by his well-paid scientists! Did you even think before you did this?” Jonathan was agitated beyond the ability to stand still. “No,” he continued, answering his own question, “you obviously didn’t, because if you had, you would have come to us first. Instead you went behind our backs and put yourself in danger! How could you do this, son?”

                “Dad, Lex would never hurt me. He’s my best friend and I trust him.”

                His dad was still outraged, but he had no words for Clark’s calm statement. He looked to his wife for back up.

                “Your dad is right, honey, that was a very dangerous thing to do. Telling anyone is dangerous, but especially someone like Lex Luthor. I like that boy, but he has his issues and I don’t want to see you seriously hurt because Lex gets angry with you one day.”

                Clark thought about her words. It was true that Lex had his issues – who wouldn’t with Lionel Luthor as a father? – but Lex had never hurt him in the past, even when he’d been angry at Clark. It seemed unfair to Clark that his parents were upset about him telling Lex not because he’d exposed his secret to someone, but because it was Lex he’d told.

                “You wouldn’t be this upset if it were Pete I told.” The bitterness of his statement hung in the air like the words were tangible, physical objects.

                His dad let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, we would, Clark. I know you hate lying, son, but your secret doesn’t just put you in danger. It’s a great burden to place on someone. Did you think about how you could be putting Lex in danger by telling him? He undoubtedly already has a lot of enemies and now anyone can use him to get to you.”

                Clark looked down at his lap, guilty. Yes, he’d thought about it, but in an abstract way, the way a child thinks about death. It was something that existed, but not for them or anyone they loved. Now with his father’s voice echoing in his ears, the gravity of the situation settled on him like a planet. He’d only thought of how much he hated lying to his best friend and how much he wanted someone to know, to understand. But he couldn’t take it back now and he wasn’t sure he wanted to, even knowing that what his father said was true. Clark would protect Lex. He’d always been there to save him in the past, hadn’t he? But what if he got there too late, just one time? Fear gripped him.

                “Clark, sweetheart,” his mother said gently, walking around the table to wrap her arms around his shoulders, “I know you thought you were doing the right thing for your friendship, and I know how hard it is to lie all the time to people you care about, but you need to come to us before you make decisions like this. Your father and I only want what’s best for you and to protect you.”

                “I know, mom. I’m sorry. I just…I hated that Lex didn’t think I trusted him, when I do. I didn’t even think about how it could be putting him danger.” Clark felt dangerously close to crying, but he’d had enough of that today and he did his best to reign in his emotions.

                His mother sighed. “I know, honey, I know. But what’s done is done and there’s nothing we can do to change it. We’ll have to talk to Lex and make sure he understands how dangerous this is.”

                That sounded fun. His parents sitting Lex down to have the ‘now that you know our son is an alien, you could be in serious danger’ talk. It would be amusing if it weren’t so terrifying.

                “There’s more,” Clark admitted.

                “More?” his father asked incredulously.

                “Rey. She knew. She knew where I’m from. She’s been there! Apparently, I’m from a planet called Krypton and she knew my grandfather, Seg-El. My birth name is Kal-El. She knows so much about me, about my family, where I’m from. It’s…it’s kinda incredible.”

                His mother released him to exchange a look with his father. He could tell they were having a silent conversation, but wasn’t sure what they were saying to each other.

                “Son, are you sure she’s telling the truth?”

                “You think she lied about all that?”

                “I didn’t say that,” his dad said patiently. “I just meant that she’s been through a traumatic experience. Sometimes the brain comes up with ways to rationalize what happened to them. She may think she’s telling the truth, but it may not be what really happened.”

                Clark shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. Ryan saw her memories. She couldn’t have faked those, could she? And think about how fast she was healing! And the way she called out to Ryan from the woods? It doesn’t seem very likely that it’s all in her head.”

                His parents looked troubled, but they couldn’t argue with his reasoning. The evidence was there. Clark had looked into Rey’s eyes as she told her story, had listened to her heartbeat; he knew she wasn’t lying. Just as he knew in his heart that Krypton was where he was born and the language she had spoken in her dream was the language of his people. He knew that his parents felt like all of it was a little too good to be true – Clark had felt the same way – but it was. Rey really had been on Krypton, his grandfather really had saved the planet from an early extinction, and his name really was Kal-El. Rey had already revealed so much about his past that he previously had no access to. What more could she tell him tomorrow, the next day, the next? To him, Rey was the fount of information he had always dreamed of, just in an unexpected form.

                “Clark, this is…this is unexpected, to say the least. But if it’s true –”

                “It is.”

                “Then this is wonderful. You’ve always wondered about your birth parents and it seems that Rey can give you the answers you’ve always wanted. I’m so happy for you, sweetie.” His mother didn’t seem happy. The smile on her face was right, but it didn’t match the sadness in her eyes. He looked over to see the same sadness reflected in his father’s expression, before he quickly hid it behind an equally fake smile of encouragement, a second too late.

                “Mom, dad, I do want to know about my birth parents and where I come from, but you two will always be my parents. No amount of information I learn from Rey will ever change that, okay?”

                “Oh, Clark,” his mother said, wrapping her arms around him once more, “we know that. But we appreciate you saying it. I guess it’s just hard for us to imagine that someone else could have loved you as deeply as we do.”

                Clark hugged her back tightly. When they parted, he got up from his seat at the dinner table and walked over to his father, pulling him into an equally tight hug.

                “Son, my ribs,” his father complained after a moment.

                “Oh, sorry, dad.” He quickly released him.

                “It’s okay,” his father laughed. “But you should be more careful.” Only his father could make him feel better and chastise him in the same breath.

                “I will. I’m sorry,” he said again. He seemed to be saying that a lot today.

                “Dinner’s almost ready,” his mom said, and just like that they were back to normal. “Why don’t you go get Ryan and you two get washed up for dinner.”

                Clark smiled and supersped up the stairs to tell Ryan dinner was ready. Likely, he already knew because he’d been listening in, but he liked going through the motions anyway. It felt like a normal thing to do: go fetch his brother for dinner. His brother. Clark would really love if Ryan could stay, but he knew it would be hard to convince Child Services to let that happen. Maybe Lex could help? His father seemed to have dropped most of the animosity he previously held toward Lex for the ‘Luthor’ part of his name, despite the fear of what he could do to Clark now that he knew his secret, but it might still be a hard sell. His father’s pride might just be his own Achilles’ heel.

Dinner with the same as usual, albeit with a harder edge and not-so-sneaky, meaningful glances exchanged between his mom and dad, but Clark just felt relieved and content. His parents had taken the news better than he had expected and, though he still felt guilty every time he thought about the fact that he had unwittingly put Lex in danger, he was glad Lex knew. It felt like they had been stuck playing the same scenes, reciting the same lines, the same lies, over and over and now they were free to move forward.

                The next morning, Clark woke up to the sun stretching its light lazily over his body through the window of the loft. He stretched his body with it, enjoying the warmth from beneath his blanket. He glanced over at his alarm clock. It was almost ten a.m. His parents usually let him sleep in on the weekends, but ten o’clock was pushing it even for him. He wondered why no one had come to wake him up.

He stood up and stretched again, his muscles pulling in just the right ways, and let out a long breath. He had dreamed of flying again last night. It was a recurring dream that was becoming more and more frequent. Last night, though, he didn’t feel like he was flying alone. He tried to remember who had been with him, but the dream slipped through his fingers like sand the more he tried to think about it. He gave up and pulled on some clothes before heading down the stairs and toward the house. On his way, he was surprised to find Lex’s car in the driveway. Clark’s heart sank. His parents had already ambushed Lex before he had a chance to warn him. Clark sighed and hurried in the house, ready to protect Lex from his parents’ overbearing protective instincts if need be.

                It turned out that his concern was unnecessary. He walked in to find his parents, Ryan, Lex, and Rey talking and laughing as though they’d all been friends for years. Was this the Twilight Zone? Surely a dream at least. Maybe he’d wake up soon. He wanted to pinch himself, but knew it would do no good. He wouldn’t feel it anyway.

                “Clark! You’re finally up,” his mother greeted him.

                “You missed all the fun, Clark,” Lex teased, a mischievous smirk on his lips. His eyes silently told Clark that Martha and Jonathan had already cornered Lex before Clark was even conscious. Well, at least Lex had come through the other side looking relatively unscathed.

                “We were just talking about the time you thought you could fly so you jumped off the roof of the barn,” Ryan informed him, looking entirely too happy about that information.

                “I was so scared you’d hurt yourself!” Martha laughed. “You were crying so hard when I found you I thought you’d broken a bone, but you were just upset that you couldn’t actually fly.”

                “Yeah, well, maybe I was right,” Clark said defensively, “but I was just too early.”

                Ryan nearly started bouncing in his seat. “I knew it! You can fly! You said you couldn’t but you can! Why don’t you fly all the time? If I could fly, I’d never put my feet on the ground.”

                Clark laughed at Ryan’s excitement, but blushed when he looked over and saw the awe in Lex’s eyes. “Well, no, I can’t actually fly,” he admitted, looking away from his friend. “Not exactly. I mean, I’ve floated a few times but I can’t really control it.” It felt surreal to be talking about his powers so openly in front of so many people.

                “You’ll learn,” Rey said confidently. Images of Superman, the hero described by Adam so many times it felt like he was more myth than reality, filled her mind. She saw a man larger than life standing between humanity and its own destruction. Flying fast enough to break the sound barrier. Moving faster than a speeding bullet. Confidence exuded from Adam’s Superman in a way that just…didn’t fit Clark. Superman stood tall, his voice boomed, his eyes were intense and commanding. Clark hunched into himself, speaking quietly, trying to make himself less noticeable at all times. Oh, there were moments. Moments where Clark would get angry and draw himself up to his full height, his shoulders thrown back, and his voice would take on an edge that would shock anyone who didn’t know better. Rey had yet to witness this change occur in Clark the way Lex had, but she could imagine it. Clark’s awkward, clumsy persona was just that – a persona. A mask. Rey was curious to see who he really was underneath.

                “You seem so sure about that,” Martha said hesitantly. “How do you know?”

                “Adam, my friend from Krypton, was from Earth, decades from now. Clark is the one who sent him to Krypton to warn Seg in the first place.”

                Martha considered that. Rey’s friend certainly seemed like he knew a lot about Clark, but if her son would one day trust this man, she supposed he must be a good person. She trusted her son’s judgment, despite her own confused feelings regarding a mystery man from the future.

                “What else did this Adam tell you about our son?” Jonathan asked. He couldn’t help the slight anger in his voice which served to mask the fear underneath. Jonathan Kent did not trust easily, and he never trusted a stranger who gave you exactly what you wanted without asking for anything in return. Lionel Luthor had taught him that painful lesson.

                “Mr. Kent,” Rey began, her tone gentle and understanding, “I know this is hard for you. I came into your lives out of nowhere and started telling your son about his home planet. I’m a stranger who knows entirely too much and you have every right not to trust me. But I’m telling you the truth when I say that I loved Seg and therefore, I also love Clark. I would never do or say anything out of malicious intent toward your son.”

                Clark wondered again if she could read minds, because those were the exact words his father needed to hear to relax and give her a chance. Clark noticed that she didn’t say that she would never hurt him, just that she would never intentionally do so. It was a clever twist of words, but prolonged exposure to Lex made him better at reading between the lines.

                Lex pondered Rey’s confession that she had loved Seg. He had gathered from the way she talked about him that he had been important to her during her time on Krypton, but he had no idea about the nature of their relationship. She loved him, but had she been in love with him? It was another question for his list.

                Rey shifted on the couch, trying to hide how the movement caused her nearly healed bones to protest. Clark caught the flash of pain in her eyes, however, and quickly scanned her body to check her injuries. Even to his untrained eye, they looked much better, even better than they had looked yesterday when he left. Her ribs were nearly fully healed and there was some slight scarring on a few of her organs from the surgeries, but they were steadily fading. The fracture on her femur was nearly invisible. Her heartbeat was still a little slow, based on how fast everyone else’s was beating, but her energy seemed better today, so he didn’t feel the need to mention it.

                Lex too was carefully tuned to Rey’s pain level and cast her a concerned look when she shifted. She waved him off. “I’m fine, Lex, stop acting like a mother hen. I told you, I heal fast and I’ve had worse. Ask Clark how much better my injuries look.”

                Lex turned his gaze to Clark, who flushed. Was it a breach of privacy to use his x-ray to check someone’s injuries, even for the sake of their wellbeing? He wasn’t sure; there wasn’t exactly a protocol for these sorts of things.

                “Yeah,” he said. He cleared his throat. “The fracture on her femur is completely healed and her ribs are almost there. Most of the bruises are gone, except some of the worst ones. There’s no internal bleeding or anything.” He wasn’t sure he was the most qualified to talk about medical things – he wasn’t exactly a doctor – but Lex seemed equally relieved and awed by his diagnosis.

                “You can see all that? I mean, I know you told me you have x-ray vision and you used it once before at the mansion, but…I guess this is just a little different.” Lex looked from Clark to Rey in amazement.

                “Yeah,” Clark replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. He didn’t know what to do with Lex’s wonder at his abilities.

                “You’ve gotten a lot more control over your x-ray vision, son,” Jonathan said proudly. As much as he didn’t like more people knowing about Clark’s abilities (too much risk, for everyone involved), it gratified him to see other people as in awe of his son as he was. Clark truly was amazing, and he often wondered about their choice to keep him hidden from the world. Yet the need to protect his son was stronger than his doubts and he never thought about it for too long.

                “Yeah, I have,” Clark said, beaming at his father’s pride. “No more surprise skeletons,” he laughed. That had been a rough week.

                Ryan wrinkled his nose. “You mean you were just looking around and then suddenly you saw everyone’s bones and stuff? That sounds awful.”

                “It was even worse when I saw their muscles and organs. At least skeletons aren’t red and slimy.” Clark laughed again at Ryan’s horrified expression.

                “Do your abilities just appear one day? Is there any warning, any sign that you’re going to suddenly start seeing skeletons in place of people? If you’re developing them at a similar rate to your physical development, it could be linked to your hormones, or perhaps some other aspect of puberty unique to Kryptonians.”

                Clark smiled. He secretly loved it when Lex started getting scientific and curious. One of his favorite parts of their friendship were the times when Lex would call him out of the blue with a strange request (‘I need two quarts of cream. Meet me in an hour.’ ‘Where can I find liquid nitrogen in Smallville?’ ‘Meet me in the field by Crater Lake. Wear something inflammable.’) and then they would do random science experiments together. Or rather, Lex would perform the experiment, asking Clark to hand him things occasionally, while Clark watched. It was a childish side of Lex that the rest of the world didn’t get to see and he felt privileged to be allowed to know the real Lex, the one behind the Armani suits and business mogul persona. To him, that meant more to him than any other truth Lex could show him.

                “We don’t know how they develop,” Clark’s mother answered for him. “He’s always been strong and fast and he grows faster and stronger every day. He’s never been sick a day in his life. Never broken a bone. He had plenty of bruises as a kid, always trying to do more than he could handle, but nothing serious. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember you even having bruises for a long time now. The last time I can clearly remember was when you were thirteen and you and Pete tried racing your bikes down that hill behind the Ross’s. Both of you were pretty banged up after that, but he was a lot worse off than you.”

                “Yeah, and I definitely took the worse fall in that one. He didn’t lose control of his bike until he was nearly at the bottom.” Clark remembered that day. It was a stupid idea, but Clark had always had a hard time saying no to Pete’s stupid ideas, and so they had ended up at the top of the steep hill, leaning over their bikes, ready to race each other to the bottom. Of course, neither of them had worn helmets, despite their mothers’ insistence. Clark’s front tire had hit a rock and his bike flipped. Clark was thrown from the bike at an angle and hit a tree before landing several feet away and rolling to the bottom of the hill. Pete had tried to stop when he saw Clark hit the tree, but it was a new bike and the brakes were stronger than he was used to, so the bike stopped too suddenly and Pete too was thrown to the bottom of the hill. After making sure each other were okay, the two had lain there laughing until finally the aching in their heads made them get up and walk their bikes back to Pete’s house.

                “You healed so quickly. It was hard to come up with a reason why the bruise on your face was gone the next day and Pete still looked like he picked a fight with the ground,” Jonathan said. He couldn’t remember what lie they had told Mrs. Ross when she asked, incredulous, how Clark was fine after such a fall, but she had accepted it and ever since then, they never had to explain away Clark’s unnatural healing because he just…didn’t get hurt.

                “It really should have occurred to us earlier that you were invulnerable,” Martha admitted, “but a parent always wants to protect their child, even if they are impossible to hurt. It definitely wasn’t a theory we would have wanted to test.”

                “Until I hit him with a car,” Lex said. His lip was quirked up in amusement, but Clark could see that it still haunted him that if Clark hadn’t been an invulnerable alien, Clark would be dead.

                “Yep,” Clark replied easily. “Good thing too, otherwise you would be dead and my parents might never have told me the truth.” His tone was light, but there was a truth beneath his words that stung.

                “Honey, that’s not fair,” his mother complained. “We would have told you eventually.”

                “I know, mom, I was joking. I’m sorry.” His parents still looked wounded and Clark regretted his thoughtless jab. He didn’t realize he still felt so bitter about them keeping his origins from him. The three of them might have lied to the rest of the world, but he had always thought they were in on those lies together. Knowing that his parents had kept something so important from him was a bitter pill to swallow. He could almost understand why they did it; he knew the lengths to which they would go to protect him. But he still hadn’t quite gotten over the betrayal.

                There was an awkward silence as none of them knew what to say. Ryan looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept it to himself. Clark realized that he was still standing in the doorway of the living room and he moved to sit next to Lex on the couch. Their living room wasn’t made to hold so many people, and his parents sat in the only two chairs in the room while the rest of them sat nearly on top of each other on the small couch. Lex had to move over to accommodate Clark’s large frame.

                Finally, Martha had had enough of the awkwardness. “So, Rey, tell us about Krypton. I admit I’ve always been curious about the people who raised my son for the first few years of his life. The ones who gifted us with such a wonderful son.” She addressed the last part at Clark, smiling to let him know that she was no longer upset about his earlier comment. Clark smiled back.

                Rey leaned back against the couch, bracketed by Ryan and Lex, and told them everything they might want to know. She told them about Krypton’s red sun, about the planet’s slow decay, about Black Zero’s attempt to blow up the planet – a plan foiled by one of Clark’s ancestors (did his family make a living off saving Krypton from apocalypses?) – about the scientific wonders they had invented, about the society and their flaws and prejudices.

                “Kryptonians were once polytheists. They believed in six gods and goddesses: Rao, the sun god and father of Krypton; Cynthonna, the goddess of ice and mother of Krypton; Yuda, moon god of labor; Telle, a genderless god of wisdom and science; Lorra, god of beauty and art; and Mordo, goddess of strength and the military. As society moved toward monotheism, worshipping ‘the one true god’ Rao, it allowed the rise of a theocracy ruled by the Voice of Rao, a self-appointed prophet who claimed to speak for the god. He had ultimate power over everyone in Kandor, controlling everything from air and light to who kept their Rank and who lost it. It was the Voice who condemned Val-El to death for speaking the truth about the existence of life outside of Krypton and for warning them of a being coming to destroy Krypton.”

                “How do you remember all that?” Clark asked. She was like an encyclopedia of Kryptonian knowledge. He remembered that she said she had been curious about everything Kryptonian, but to store all that information in her brain was incredible.

                “One of the side effects of Val saving my life. I have an eidetic memory. I forget nothing.”

                Lex felt the knife twist in his chest at the bitterness in her voice. She forgot nothing, which meant that she remembered every detail of what happened to her. If her memory was as good as she said it was, that meant those memories would never fade. Again, he wished he’d had the opportunity to destroy the people who hurt her.

                “I don’t understand,” Jonathan said, “I thought you said the Voice killed Val. How did he save your life?”

                “Val stored himself in a computer program. His hologram saved me.”

                “Right,” Jonathan said. Of course. Holograms. Foreign planets. He was just a small-town farmer and even raising an alien son hadn’t prepared him for this conversation.

                Rey shot him a sympathetic smile before continuing. “Krypton’s upper class, known as the Ranked, were divided into guilds. Upon a Ranked individual’s twenty-third birthday, they were assigned to their guild and given the opportunity to bind. Before the rule of the Voice of Rao, the Binding was a voluntary act, a commitment made out of love, much like marriage on Earth. After he gained control, it became more of a business transaction, an arranged bond between two individuals of equal Rank whose genetics and Houses were compatible. That was how Seg nearly became part of the House Vex. He was arranged to be Binded with Nyssa-Vex, youngest daughter of Daron-Vex, the man who killed Seg’s grandfather on the Voice's order.”

                “Nearly? How did Seg get out of the marriage? Or Binding or whatever?” Clark asked.

                “By standing in front of Daron and cutting the Vex House sigil from his clothing and declaring that he might never regain the name El, but he would never become a Vex,” Rey answered, smiling proudly at the memory. She hadn’t witnessed the scene, but she could imagine Seg’s defiant stance, the determination and hatred in his eyes as he tossed the sigil onto the floor at Daron’s feet. It was a satisfying image.

                “Seg sounds like a troublemaker,” Lex commented lightly. Rey had said Kandor’s society was strict and that everything was carefully controlled; even the games the Ranked played with each other were carefully planned chess moves. Seg sounded like someone who didn’t care about those rules and did whatever he wanted. Which was likely how Rey got into so much trouble while she was there.

                  Rey laughed. “He was. My Rao, the things that boy got himself into. And Kem was no better! Encouraging him to participate in ridiculous scams and going along with any plan Seg came up with, no matter how stupid. Those two were as thick as thieves – which they were, to some degree.”

                Lex frowned at the thought of Rey spending the past five years with thieves and impulsive incendiaries. They could have gotten her killed. They could be the reason Rey had been tortured. Yet Rey had said she loved Seg. Did Seg love her back? And what of Kem? Obviously she cared for him too. Had Kem cared for her in return?

                “It sounds like Kryptonians are a lot more like humans than I would have thought,” Ryan commented. “Until I met Clark, I kinda thought aliens were green and small and, well, alien.”

                “Yes, they were,” Rey said, looking over at him. “Kryptonians like to believe that they were the height of culture and intelligence, but they were just as flawed as humans and just as emotional. The only real difference was that they had millennia to invent ways to solve problems and millennia to invent problems to solve.” Rey sighed, missing Krypton despite herself. “I was only there for about twelve cycles, but it was like a lifetime. So much happened.”

                “Twelve cycles?” Lex asked, alarmed. “You’ve only been gone five years!”

                “Time is complicated,” Rey explained, though she felt thrown by that number. It had only been five years? That explained how Lex looked so young. Still an adult, but barely. “Krypton is lightyears away from Earth. Time isn’t linear, especially in space, and it’s likely that in coming back, however that happened, I ended up arriving only five years after I left, rather than decades later.”

                Decades. Lex didn’t know how to process that. Rey had been on that planet for decades, trying to survive. He remembered what she said about not having eaten real food since she left. He couldn’t imagine living like that, alone amongst a different species, exiled from everything familiar. For all that he had missed her the past five years, it couldn’t compare to the loneliness she likely felt all that time. He no longer felt bitter towards Seg and Kem, only glad that she hadn’t been completely alone.

                “How were you able to travel between Krypton and Earth?” Jonathan asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

                “I don’t know. Val spent years trying to find the answer, studying me, studying anomalies in data collected from space and the planet’s atmosphere during every instance of my visits, trying to figure out how it could have happened. It’s still a mystery.”

                They were all quiet as they thought about this. It seemed like everything else strange in Smallville had an explanation: Clark’s arrival and the meteor rocks. Even that could be explained, to some degree. Yet instantaneous, unintentional space-time travel? There was no explanation for that.

                “Do you think it could have an…external cause?” Lex asked, not wanting to say the words out loud, but unable to deny the possibility.

                “Yes, that is the reigning theory at the moment. I certainly am not in control of it, so it stands to reason that someone else is.”

                That news didn’t sit well with anyone.

                “Why?” Ryan asked. “Why would someone do that?”

                “I have no idea,” Rey admitted. She had thought this problem over in her head a million times, like a dog chasing its tail. If truly there was someone transporting her back and forth between worlds, across vast distances of time and space, why had they chosen her? What was the point? Was it an experiment, just to see if they could do it? The thought of someone toying with her for their own amusement, batting her between planets like a mouse between the paws of a lion, made her feel sick.

                “Well,” Martha said, after a long moment of tense silence, “we’re not going to come up with any answers on an empty stomach. I believe I promised you both breakfast. Let’s eat and then return to this discussion afterward.”

                Clark was grateful. For one, he was starving. His stomach felt like it was determined to eat itself. The amount of food he’d eaten yesterday had gone a long way toward filling the abyss in his abdomen, but his body was not so easily sated. Secondly, this conversation was giving him a headache and he was having a hard time sitting still, his fidgeting getting to the point where Lex had grabbed his twitching fingers and made them lie still. Clark had tried his best not to move too much after that, but his fingers soon went back to tapping a rhythm on his knees and he had heard Lex’s quiet sigh from beside him.

                They all joined Martha in the kitchen, crowding the small table that was comfortable for three, but not nearly spacious enough for six. Jonathan brought in some extra chairs for Lex and Rey to sit on. Martha began preparing omelets for everyone, two for Clark, as the rest began talking about anything other than Krypton and aliens.

                As soon as his mother slid his plate in front of him, Clark started shoveling food into his mouth.

                “Clark,” Martha admonished, “we have _guests_. Try to eat politely and not like you haven’t seen food in five years.”

                “Sorry, mom.” He swallowed a mouthful of egg and cheese and ham. “Just really hungry.”

                “Don’t worry, Mrs. K – Martha, we’ve all seen how Clark can eat,” Lex laughed.

                Martha rolled her eyes. “That _really_ doesn’t make me feel any better.” But she was smiling so Clark didn’t take it to heart. He put his hand over his heart in mock offense.

                “I am _offended_. I eat with the dignity and grace of a king,” he joked, sitting up straight in his chair and trying to look regal. He carefully cut a small piece of omelet, his nose in the air, and put it in his mouth, chewing delicately.

                “Yes, Your Grace,” Lex said dryly, “very dignified how you ate an entire buffet of food in ten minutes yesterday.”

                They all laughed at that, and at Clark’s performance. An actor he would not be.

                “Did he really eat that much?” Martha asked. It made her wonder if they were feeding Clark enough. It was hard enough feeding him as much as they were now, with the bills and the mortgage…it was hard to think they hadn’t been providing for him because they didn’t have the money. She had no doubt in her mind though that Clark would have kept it a secret from them that he wasn’t getting enough food. That boy was too selfless for his own good.

                 “Yeah, he did,” Ryan said, laughing at the memory. “It was kinda disgusting. I’ve never seen anyone eat that much food in my life. And then he ate lunch!”

                Clark blushed furiously, the tips of his ears turning bright pink with embarrassment. He knew he had eaten a lot of food yesterday, but he just couldn’t help himself. Plus, Lex hadn’t seemed to mind.

                “It was my fault,” Lex said, aiming to ease Clark’s embarrassment. “I ordered way too much food and needed someone to help eat it. Clark obliged.”

                Clark shot him a grateful smile. Lex smiled back.

                “Well, Clark has always had a fast metabolism. It was hard to keep up with him growing up. Good thing was, he was never a picky eater. That made it a lot easier,” Jonathan said. Like his wife, he too was wondering if his son’s needs were being met. Clark had always needed a lot more food growing up, but they had thought his hunger stabilized as he reached maturity. Perhaps Clark had just started hiding how hungry he was to avoid eating them out of house and home. Literally, if the bills kept piling up.

                Clark avoided his parents concerned looks and went back to finishing his omelet slowly, chewing properly. He had a feeling his parents suspected that he'd been lying to them about not being hungry after meals. It wasn’t like it was damaging his health or anything. He felt fine, just…hungry.

                The rest of breakfast passed uneventfully and this time it was Clark and his father who cleaned up afterward while the other four went back to the living room. They washed dishes in silence for a while until finally Jonathan cleared his throat.

                “Son, tell me the truth. Are you getting enough food?”

                Clark sighed. He’d been waiting for this question. “I’m fine, dad, honest.”

                “That doesn’t answer my question.”

                Clark dried the dish in his hand slowly, focusing on the task so he didn’t have to meet his father’s eyes. “I mean, I’m a little hungry usually, but it doesn’t affect me at all, so it’s not a big deal.”

                “Clark, going hungry is a big deal. Especially if that reason is that we’re not providing for you.”

                Clark looked up, alarmed. “No, dad! I don’t want you to think you guys aren’t providing for me. It’s just that I can eat so much and I don’t think I really need to so there’s no reason for you guys to spend extra money on unnecessary food.”

                Jonathan sighed. “If you’re hungry without it, it’s necessary. We’ll start keeping more food in the house.”

                “But, dad –“

                “No buts. We’ll make it work. We always have.”

                Clark set the overly dry dish down on the counter and hugged his father tightly. No matter what sort of weirdness came up, his father always found a way to make it work. He had been the one to teach him how to control his strength, the one Clark always came to for advice. Even more than his mother.

                Clark let his father go after a moment and was surprised to see unshed tears in his father’s eyes.

                “I love you, son,” he said sincerely. “Now let’s finish up these dishes so we can join the rest of them in the living room.”


	13. Heartbeat

The four of them walked into the mansion, each thinking over the morning. After breakfast, they had all crowded into the Kents’ living room once more and Rey had tried to answer all their questions. Clark’s parents had been just as devastated that Krypton had been destroyed as Clark had, tears falling freely down their faces. It made them all the more grateful that Clark’s biological parents had saved him and sent him to Earth. The questions she had the hardest time answering had been those about Seg. She heard her voice grow more and more detached the more she talked about him, what he was like, how he lived. Anything more personal than the color of his hair made Rey’s heart ache with missing him. They had never been anything more than friends, but Rey had never needed nor wanted anything more from him. She hated to think that he had no idea where she’d gone, that he might assume she was dead. She had been close enough to death at the time. Though it seemed that she had escaped Elysium once again.

 Rey was exhausted. She did her best not to let it show as she settled onto the couch, but of course Lex noticed anyway.

“Maybe you should rest. It's been a long day.”

Rey sighed. The last thing she wanted to do right now was go back to sleep, even after talking all morning. She looked around the room, avoiding answering Lex. Her eyes drifted over to the desk. Files were piled neatly in the middle, a single piece of paper sitting on top. Even from here she recognized Lex's precise handwriting. It didn't look like anything to do with business - too informal, too personal. She got up, ignoring Lex's noise of protest, and walked over to pick up the piece of paper.

It was a list. At the top were the glaring words “Why did Rey lie to me?” She kept reading. It was everything Lex wanted to ask from “How many moons does Krypton have?” to “How did Rey get those letters to me from Krypton?”

She walked back toward the couch and allowed herself to collapse into her seat, still reading the list. There were so many.

Lex felt slightly self-conscious watching her study his inner turmoil recorded on paper, ordered neatly from numbers one to one hundred and twelve. He hoped she could answer all the questions on the list, starting with the first one.

“Lex,” Rey said as she put aside the paper, a little desperate to get through to him, “I lied to you because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what? Of me? Of my reaction?”

“Yes. And also afraid _for_ you. I had no idea how much danger someone would be in if they knew. I was trying to protect you.” She took a deep breath. “But I was also afraid that you wouldn't believe me, that you would try to help me and, in doing so, accidentally make things worse.”

“You didn't think I'd believe you?” Lex asked, hurt.

“You have to admit, little bird, it sounds crazy. I was afraid you would think I'd lost my mind. I often feared the same thing.”

There was truth to her words, but hurt spoke louder than truth.

“You could have come to me,” he snapped. “I was your best friend. You're like a sister to me, I would have done anything for you. I still would.”

“I know. I know that now, Lex. But I was so scared. Think about how young we were. I thought I was alone in what I was experiencing and it was too terrifying to even put into words.” Tears spilled freely down her cheeks at her confession.

Lex got up from his armchair and sat next to her on the couch. He wrapped his arms around her. Clark had never seen him be so liberal with physical affection as he had the past few days. It was a softer, more vulnerable Lex than he'd ever seen.

“I still wish you had told me, Rey,” he stated, but he held onto her tightly and his previous anger faded to a dull ache in his chest. He would have been there for her, listened to her. But he also feared that she might have been right. Before all the strangeness of Smallville opening his mind to the possibilities of unexplainable phenomena, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't have tried to get her professional help, fearing for her sanity. It would have been out of love, but even love can hurt those you care about.

“I know, little bird. You know I love you right?”

“I love you too, Rey,” he answered, not caring that he said those words in front of Clark and Ryan. Rey had always made him feel brave about showing his emotions.

They sat in a comfortable silence, the two of them still holding each other, while Clark picked up the list and looked over Lex's curiosities.

He laughed at a few of them making Lex turn toward him with a quirked eyebrow, partially releasing Rey so only his right arm was around her shoulders. Her grip on his midsection didn't loosen, but she peered around him to look at Clark.

“Yes, I do sweat,” he said with amusement, answering one of the questions toward the bottom of the list, “but it's usually an emotional thing. It takes a lot of physical exertion to make me sweat.” He glanced down at another question. “I have no idea how I block out Ryan's ability to read minds. It must be a kryptonian defense mechanism or something.” He kept his eyes on the paper, picking questions at random to answer.

“Why am I allergic to kryptonite? I don't know. How strong am I exactly? I can lift a tractor above my head with one hand and change the tire. But that's pretty easy,” he said with a shrug, “so I have no idea how much I could lift if I tried. As for how fast I am, I've never pushed myself as hard as I can, but I can move faster than a bullet when I need to.”

Lex stared at him. Faster than a bullet. Well that would explain how he'd been able to survive Ryan's stepfather with a shotgun.

“Does my invulnerability extend beyond being impervious to physical harm? I'm not sure. I don't get sick or anything. I don't think I could even catch a human disease.” He thought for a minute. “I need less sleep than most people seem to. I can hold my breath for over two hours.” He didn't say how he knew that. (He had tested it once after going swimming with Pete at Crater Lake when he realized he could stay underwater much longer than his friend. His mom had caught him with his cheeks puffed out like a squirrel after two hours and nineteen minutes. She had made him release his breath, saying that he was turning blue, but he still thought he could have gone longer.) “I still feel all the usual things like hunger and tiredness, but it just doesn't bother me as much. I could probably survive on a deserted island without food or water for a long time no problem. It wouldn't be fun, but I could do it.”

“Damn,” Lex said eloquently.

Clark grinned. He was having fun making Lex Luthor speechless.

“Let's see. How did I avoid doctors finding out that I’m an alien? My parents never took me to a doctor. I’ve never gotten sick, so there was no reason to.”

“What about vaccines?” Lex asked reasonably. “Don’t you need records of vaccination to go to school?”

“My parents found a way around that. They said that ‘for religious reasons’ they wouldn’t take me to a doctor. Made a lot of people think we were Amish or something.” He shrugged, but it had been weird to have people ask him about being Amish when they certainly were not.

“That makes sense.”

“You’ve never been to a doctor?” Ryan asked jealously. “Lucky.”

“Yeah, well,” Clark shrugged, “sometimes there are benefits to not being normal.” He didn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he said that, not wanting them to see how much it hurt him to acknowledge that he wasn’t normal and never would be. He cleared his throat and picked another question. “’Does the government know? If not, how?’” he read. “Well, there were some government agents that came asking questions after the meteor strike. They said they were scientists trying to figure out how the strike happened, but they just looked like regular agents to me. They questioned everyone in town, but it was just marked down as a freak event. Nobody would have expected that a three-year old was responsible.”

“Clark, I told you: you weren’t responsible.” Lex would not budge on this issue. Clark just shrugged again and moved on, unwilling to get into it. He looked back at the list.

“How old am I really? It’s difficult to say. My parents said I seemed to be about three when they found me, so that’s what they put on the adoption papers. I seem to have aged at a normal speed so far, so I’m probably about fifteen or sixteen.”

“Yes, that sounds right,” Rey affirmed. “Kryptonians age much the same way humans do until they reach about twenty-three cycles. Then the aging process slows down exponentially. I would, however, have expected you to age slower on Earth, given that the days and years are shorter here, but perhaps the effect of the yellow sun made your body develop faster, so you could develop your abilities sooner. That’s just a hypothesis though, I’m not sure.”

“You’ve mentioned before that the Earth’s sun affects me differently than Krypton’s sun. How exactly does it do that?”

“It’s the reason why you can do everything that you can do. Kryptonians get much of their energy from light, and with you being exposed to a more powerful, different kind of light, your body has been fundamentally changed from that of a Kryptonian raised on Krypton.”

“So on Krypton I would be normal? No powers or anything?”

“Essentially. Your healing would be faster than a human’s and your ability to process data would be increased, but other than that, yes, you would be ‘normal’.”

“Ability to process data? So, is Clark more intelligent than a normal human?” Lex wondered aloud, unable to reconcile the Clark he knew, who constantly looked at him blankly whenever Lex used words longer than five letters, with the idea of Clark being a secret genius.

“Yes. I’m not sure how much his brain has developed, but given that he’s already around sixteen years old, basic math up to mathematical physics should be rather simple. Reading should be as easy as breathing. Clark, have you ever tried speed reading?”

Clark was flustered. He had always gotten good grades and he knew he was a lot better at math than he pretended to be around anyone other than his parents, but he never thought of himself as particularly intelligent. Especially around someone like Lex, who spoke half in Greek literature and half in what seemed to be code.

“No,” he admitted, “but I don’t really read much unless it’s for class.” He preferred to spend his time stargazing – or Lana-gazing – or in his own head. He found most books boring. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand them (he had gotten exceptional grades in all his literature classes), it was just that he was more interested in the here and now, what was happening in his own life. His life was interesting enough without having to read about someone else’s. That didn’t mean he hadn’t read several of the books Lex had mentioned, trying to see the appeal. He had liked the Iliad, most of Shakespeare, but not much of the rest. Machiavelli was an egotistical bastard. Dostoevsky spent too much time winding around the point, never quite getting there. _The Art of War_ actually made him laugh there were so many ridiculous quotes in there. He had kept that one, just so he could flip through and pick out a quote at random when he was feeling bored. And Nietzsche…Clark didn’t even know what to say about Nietzsche.

Lex got up and grabbed a book at random from his bookshelf. _Being and Nothingness_ by Jean-Paul Sartre. Nothing like throwing him into the deep end. Clark took a deep breath and accepted the book. It was a small thing, but Clark had attempted to read French philosophy exactly once and had little desire to do so again. Still, at Rey’s encouragement, Clark opened the book and began to read. He read the first few words slowly, “Our inquiry has led us to the heart of being.” He began to read faster, skimming the first page before flipping to the next. It was actually pretty…thought-provoking. And depressing. He flipped through the rest of the book, his eyes moving faster and faster across the lines of text until he reached the end. He set the book down and sat back, absorbing what he’d read.

“Did you even read the words?” Ryan asked. “That took you, like, less than a minute.”

“Temporality is obviously an organized structure, and these three so-called elements of time: past, present, future, must not be envisaged as a collection of 'data' to be added together...but as the structured moments of an original synthesis. Otherwise we shall immediately meet with this paradox: the past is no longer, the future is not yet, as for the instantaneous present, everyone knows that it is not at all: it is the limit of infinite division, like the dimensionless point,” Clark quoted. It made him think about what Rey had said about time being complex. It was easy to think that time was linear, that it moved from past to future without regard for anything in its path, but perhaps time was like a river, linear enough, but meandering, moving around obstacles, slowing to almost a standstill in places and quickening to dangerous rapids in others. Maybe that’s why some points in history seem like a crescendo, while others are quiet and unremarkable. Time wasn’t to be taken as three separate parts, but rather as a whole, as the river is a whole, and interconnected, as water feeds into itself over and over.

“That’s quite the insight,” Lex remarked. Clark realized, blushing, that he had said what he thought was his internal monologue out loud. He had a habit of talking to himself sometimes when he got too lost in his head, a side-effect of spending too much time in his Fortress of Solitude most likely.

“Yeah, well, my head hurts now,” Clark complained. “And I’m depressed.”

“Sartre has that effect on people,” Lex said with amusement. “I’m sure you’ll be alright.”

Clark had to resist the very childish urge to stick his tongue out at him. “I better be, since you’re the one who chose the book. Why couldn’t you have chosen _A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream_ or something else funny?”

“You’ve read _A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream_?”

“Don’t sound so surprised, Lex.”

“You just admitted that you don’t read outside of school assignments,” he returned.

“Well, I may have read some of the books you’ve mentioned. And then I realized I sort of liked Shakespeare, so I read a few more.” If by a few more, that meant all his major plays.

Lex smiled. Clark had read the books he mentioned? He mentioned a lot of books… Had he read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu as well? He couldn’t imagine it. He was happy to hear that Clark liked Shakespeare though; he didn’t know many who truly did.

“When did I mention Shakespeare?” He couldn’t remember having a conversation about Romeo and Juliet with Clark.

“It was just a comment you made about Hamlet. ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’.”

“I didn’t know you paid so much attention to my ramblings, Clark.”

“I think I almost pay more attention when you’re rambling than when you’re not,” Clark admitted. It was true; Lex rambling was the most fascinating, insightful, intelligent thing he’d ever seen.

“I’m flattered.”

“Okay, boys, enough flirting,” Rey teased. She ignored how Clark turned bright red and opened his mouth to protest and how Lex sat up straighter in his chair, as though by doing so he could draw back into himself and physically avoid her insinuation. “The point is, Clark can process a high volume of information at a fraction of human speed. Clark’s ability to do this is even greater than an ordinary Kryptonian, but even the least educated Kandorian had a rudimentary knowledge of what humans would consider higher maths and sciences.”

“That surprises me,” Lex interrupted. “I would think a dictatorship would avoid educating the masses to keep them subservient to him.”

“That would have been very hard in Kandor. Access to information was tightly controlled, but things like illiteracy didn’t exist there. Every child, Ranked and Rankless alike, could read by at least the age of two. Scientific advancement was also a large part of their culture and couldn’t just be erased by new leadership. Citizens were kept in their place by fear, religious belief, poverty, and force. The Saggitarai were more than just soldiers; they were military police. They brutally enforced any law put into action by the Voice of Rao and hatred between the Rankless and the Ranked was encouraged, rather than ameliorated or simply tolerated.”

“It’s interesting that such intelligence existed alongside such religious fervor.”

“Intelligence and religion are not mutually exclusive, Lex.” It was an age-old discussion between them. Lex was an atheist, had been from a very young age, despite his mother’s religious beliefs, while Rey was agnostic. She believed that there was something greater at work in the universe, she just didn’t know what. They had often gotten into arguments over religion, with Lex stating that even if there were a god, he was an absent, apathetic one who didn’t give a shit about humans. Rey knew that his anger came from a place of hurt (what kind of god would allow his mother to get so sick?), and she had never tried to force him to believe in anything, just tried to get him to understand why she did.

Lex accepted her response, not wanting to get into another argument about god’s existence. It felt good to know that no matter how much time had passed for either of them, some things never changed. Even if one of those things was an impasse between them on the subject of religion.

“I have a question,” Clark said, once it looked like Lex and Rey weren’t going to start arguing. “If all Kryptonians could read by the age of two, why can’t I read Kryptonian?”

“Likely, you simply forgot. Kryptonian is just like any language; if you don’t use it, you forget it.”

“Then how was I able to know what you said in your dream?”

“It must still be in your memory somewhere. Spoken Kryptonian must have a stronger memory for you than written, though I doubt you’d be able to follow a full conversation in the language. Adam mentioned that you could read and speak Kryptonian in the future, but I’m not sure how you learned.”

“Maybe you could teach me. Maybe that’s how it happened, time not being linear and all that. Maybe you were always supposed to be the one to teach me.”

Clark looked hopeful, but Rey was unsure. “I could teach you all I know, but I have to warn you, I’m not an expert. Plus, I spent most of my time among the Rankless, so I doubt my grammar is very good. The Rankless had a propensity toward shunning anything Ranked, including proper grammar.”

“You mean they spoke wrong on purpose?” Ryan felt lost in this conversation, but he tried to follow along as best he could. “Why would they do that if they knew the correct way?”

“It was a choice. It marked them as being different from the Ranked, as belonging to the Rankless community. You could always tell where someone had grown up by the way they spoke. Even different sections had different accents. A Rankless individual who tried speaking too properly was teased for trying to sound like one of the Ranked and likewise, a Ranked individual would be made fun of for sounding like a Rankless. It was all part of the animosity between the two classes.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.”

There was a pause after Ryan’s words and Lex picked up his list, scanning it for questions he most wanted answered and for ones he thought either Rey or Clark would be able to answer. A couple stood out to him, but one had been on his mind since he first found out that Clark was an alien.

“Why Earth? I mean, why send him here of all planets?” Not that he was complaining.

“I suspect because of Adam. Seg knew the most about Earth and likely told his son about it. He knew that humans were similar enough to Kryptonians that Kal wouldn’t raise suspicion. Plus, there was the whole destiny thing that Adam kept talking about.” She grinned at Clark as she said the word ‘destiny’, knowing how he felt about it. 

Lex nodded. That made sense. It also answered the more embarrassing question of whether Clark really looked like…Clark, or if it was just a disguise to cover his more alien appearance. ‘I mean, Clark _is_ an alien. It was a fair question,’ he reasoned to himself.

“Okay. My follow up question is: how is Clark able to survive Earth’s atmosphere? How were you able to survive Krypton’s? Are they really so similar?”

“Yes, they are. Gravity, air composition, and temperature are very similar between the two planets. Although, much of that was controlled on Krypton, beneath the dome of Kandor. Outside the dome, death would come quickly for those without a respirator and proper clothing. The only difference I found was that Kryptonians like it to be very warm, warmer than what is comfortable for a human, even though they could withstand much colder temperatures than any human. The Rankless usually wore several layers of clothing because it was ‘cold’ in the Sections, but Adam and I found it to be comfortable early summer weather.”

“It seems to me that Kryptonians can survive just about anything, but they just prefer to be warm and eat lots of food,” he smirked at Clark, who blushed again at the reminder that he ate enough for a small army.

“More or less,” Rey conceded. “But they do require these things, since prolonged exposure to cold or long periods without food can kill them just as it would a human. It would just take much longer and more extreme temperatures.”

“Except me, right?” Clark asked. “I’ve been noticing that I feel the cold less and less. I was surprised by the snow yesterday, because to me it felt fine outside. I don’t think I’ll be able to feel it at all eventually.”

“You’ll be aware of it,” Rey assured him. “It just won’t affect you. Just like you’re aware that you’re wearing clothing right now, but you can’t feel it unless you think about it.”

Clark was now uncomfortably aware of every stitch of clothing on his body. He pulled at his shirt. “Okay, at least I know I won’t be out in shorts during a snowstorm without noticing.”

“Clark, you don’t even wear shorts.” Lex had never seen Clark in anything except jeans and flannel since the day they met. The outfit was just as much a part of Clark as his personality.

“No, but you get my point.”

“I do,” Lex said softly. He had been teasing with the comment about Clark’s wardrobe, but he knew where Clark's mind had gone. Clark was afraid of losing touch with his humanity, becoming more and more Other until he couldn’t even feel snow on his skin, couldn’t tell the difference between winter and summer. Would the rest of him become as callous as his body, as unfeeling and unaffected? Lex knew that the answer was no, that Clark could never lose the humanity instilled in him by his parents nor the inherent goodness that was just who Clark was as a person, but he could see the fear of it in Clark’s eyes.

“Clark, it doesn’t matter that you’re an alien; you are the most human person I have ever met. Better, in fact, than any human I’ve ever met. The only thing your invulnerability means is that the world gets to keep you in it longer, whether it deserves to or not.”

Clark ducked his head and blushed, deeply moved. When he looked back up, he couldn't help but tease his friend by rolling his eyes and saying, "Sap.” 

“Yeah,” Lex agreed, huffing a laugh and leaning back, away from the eye contact with Clark. “I blame Rey. I always get overly emotional when she’s involved.”

“Hey! Don’t blame me,” Rey protested. “You are a very sentimental person, even though you won’t admit it. I just give you a safe outlet for your emotions because, and I emphasize this, _emotions are not a bad thing_.”

Lex heaved a put-upon sigh, which made Clark and Ryan laugh at the drama of it. “I know, Rey. ‘Emotions are healthy, Lex.’ ‘Crying is a good thing, Lex.’ ‘If you don’t deal with your emotions in a healthy way now, they’ll come back to bite you in the ass later, Lex.’” It was highly entertaining to watch Lex mimic Rey, acting like true brother and sister.

Rey smacked him in the chest and he pretended to be more wounded than he was. “You only mock me because I’m right.” She pretended to struggle to get away when he wrapped his arms around her in apology, finally giving up when it took too much energy to keep play-fighting. She collapsed against him, laughing.

“I think I might be ready for that rest you were talking about earlier,” she admitted. Her limbs felt sluggish and it was getting harder to think clearly. She knew the cause, though she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone yet: bradycardia. After being killed by the taser, the electrical impulses to her heart were interrupted. It was taking her body a lot longer to heal that than it was any other physical trauma. Every time it seemed like the syndrome had gone away, her heart would skip and she would become lethargic again, like the neurons in her brain weren't communicating with her heart properly. It was like her body didn’t know what was wrong, and so didn’t know how to fix it. She hoped that her body would figure it out soon so that the healing process would go faster. It was frustrating to always have a lower energy level due to lack of oxygen in her blood. Not to mention the fainting. Adam had teased her about that one, calling her ‘my lady’, as if she were a woman from one of those classic movies who were constantly collapsing daintily onto the nearest settee with an arm draped over their head, and asking if she’d ‘like to retire to the sitting room’. Seg and Kem had had no clue what he was talking about. Rey could still hear Kem’s confused voice when he asked, “What’s a ‘sitting room’?” That had been only funny part of the situation.

She knew Clark had noticed her irregular heartbeat. She wondered why he didn’t say anything. Perhaps he didn’t know what it meant and didn’t want to alarm anyone. In any case, she was glad he hadn’t told Lex, because Lex would have responded in typical Lex fashion: by calling in doctors from all over the world and spending unnecessary amounts of money on an unsolvable problem, looking for a solution. It was sweet how Lex was willing to buy the world for those he loved, but Rey didn’t need an army of doctors, she needed this. Lex helping her up the stairs, guiding her to bed, pulling the covers up over her. She needed her big brother to care for her. Everything else would take care of itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bradycardia is a real medical issue. It doesn't usually last years though, as far as I can tell, so I sort of stretched science a bit. But hey, it's DC, it comes with the territory.


	14. Mornings are for coffee and contemplation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The hours just before sunrise often come with complex thoughts. Just two short snippits from Jonathan and Rey.

                Jonathan Kent sat at the kitchen table, staring into his morning coffee. It was early, even for him, and the sun hadn’t yet risen. He hadn’t even turned on a light, just used the moon and stars to guide him through the routine of brewing coffee and pouring himself a cup.  It had been a whirlwind few days, which, by this family’s standards, was saying something.

                Some things had turned out for the best. Ryan had adapted quickly to their odd little family and he fit right in. The boy was quiet, still a little nervous, and more than a little distrusting, but he was bright and young and he would recover soon enough from the damage his stepparents had done. Jonathan really wished there was a way to prevent him from going into the foster care system. He and Martha would adopt him if they could. Of course, the legal fees would put them under before they ever got close. Unless they got help.

                Lex Luthor was not what Jonathan had expected. That man – barely older than a boy, really – was constantly surprising him. Yesterday was no exception. Jonathan had prepared himself for the worst, ready to storm over to the Luthor mansion himself if Lex didn’t agree to breakfast and force him to listen, but Lex agreed readily and he and his friend (sister? He still didn’t understand that one) were at the farm in under half an hour. Lex hadn’t avoided eye contact when he shook Jonathan’s hand, instead meeting his gaze steadily with a look that assured him that Lex wasn’t running away from this and neither was he planning to use his newfound knowledge against Clark. He wouldn’t have shown up otherwise.

                When they had sat down, Jonathan watched as Lex fretted over Rey, making sure she was comfortable and not in pain. In that moment it had seemed ridiculous to Jonathan that he had ever seen Lex as anything like his father, as anything less than human. He thought about the offer he had turned down that Lex had so carefully laid out. A few more negotiations and Jonathan likely would have gotten both the financial security and peace of mind he, and the family, desperately needed. Instead he had been afraid. After what Lionel did, lording Clark’s adoption over his head and making him jump through hoops like a damn dog, Jonathan was afraid to trust anyone’s help, but especially if it came from a Luthor. Now, he felt he had judged too quickly and was ashamed of himself.

                Jonathan sipped his coffee and looked out at the sunrise. Perhaps he had been wrong about Lex Luthor, but there was still that fear lodged in his chest like ice. What if one day Clark and Lex had a falling out? What would stop him from hurting Clark with everything he knew about him? It had been too big a risk for Clark to take, yet he had taken it without consulting them. Jonathan knew that Clark had to grow up some time and start making his own decisions, but this…he had not been prepared for this. Still, what’s done is done and the Kents have always been adaptable. Jonathan sighed and looked back down at his now half-empty mug. His family would make this new situation work, just as they had figured out every new thing that cropped up in their lives. He just hoped his son was right about trusting Lex.

………………………………………………………………………

_Blood flowed freely down her arms, tickling her armpits as the trail continued downward, down her sides, soaking the hem of her pants. It was an obnoxious constant in this place. She wondered how she still had any blood left since so much of it seemed to be outside her body. She could feel her wounds try to repair themselves in vain, only to be reopened and deepened every time she shifted or even so much as breathed. She cried out again for someone to hear her. Her brain kept confusing where she was in its pain-filled stupor, and she called out for Lex more often than anyone else. In her more lucid moments, she knew that Lex wasn’t here, was lightyears away, and all it served to do was break her heart a little bit more. She was going to die in this place, she was sure of it._

_The Outlands. What a convenient place to keep a prisoner. No one would ever hear her scream and even if she did manage to get free, what chance did she have against the elements to get back to Kandor? She wrapped her hands around the chains that held her in place and lifted, giving her poor wrists a break from the shackles. How long had she been here? Weeks, at least. She knew the others were worried about her, but they had other things to worry about than her disappearance. Even if they had dropped everything to look for her – which they better not have, with so much at stake – it was unlikely that they would ever find her. Or if they did, it would be too late._

_The door opened. Dim light flowed in from the hallway and Rey squinted. They were keeping her in the dark, which was a death sentence for Kryptonians. It aggravated her captors to no end that she was still alive, but they were going to use that to their advantage. Rey knew too much, knew everything about the plans Seg, Kem, and Adam had to stop Brainiac, to stop Black Zero from making another attempt to destroy the planet, to overthrow the Voice of Rao. The plans were ambitious, as they had to be, but if anyone could pull them off it was those three._

_“Hello, Rey.” Rey shivered at his voice. Its speaker was still in shadow and Rey couldn’t see his face, but Rey knew who it was all the same. It was always him. Just the two of them in this prison, her and her torturer. She knew his voice better than her own these days._

_“Let’s get started, shall we?” A cart floated in, covered in the latest tools he planned to use to break her. Rey clenched her fists, the cold chain biting her flesh. She didn’t hold back her screams as the first round of pain began, knowing that no one was around to hear her anyway._

Rey woke up with a gasp. Sweat made her hair stick to the back of her neck, to her shoulders. She couldn't catch her breath. She tossed the covers off her body and grounded herself in the present. Deep breath. I am on Earth. Breath out. I am safe. Breath in. I am in Smallville with Lex. Breath out. She touched the sheets of the bed and focused on the feel of the expensive cotton beneath her fingers. She quietly named the things she could see, could smell, could taste. Outside, she heard silence. It was still nighttime and the world was blanketed by a thick covering of snow, dampening any noise. Inside, she heard the hum of electricity in the walls, the sound of pipes rattling against the cold. The heating was on.

                Her heart still pounding, but calming down, Rey laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Her internal clock was completely off, thrown by the sudden return to twenty-four-hour days. She had no idea what time it was or how long it was until sunrise. Sunrise. How long had it been since she’d seen one of those? She got up from the bed, glad to see that she had full range of motion again, and stretched. Sometimes she thought it was a miracle that her body healed so quickly. Other times, like those last few months in the Outlands, she thought it was a curse.

                Shaking her head gently to rid herself of that thought, Rey grabbed one of her blankets and headed out into the hall. ‘Surely Lex has some way to get to the roof,’ she thought. She explored a little, making her footsteps silent on the wooden floor, searching for stairs that led up. She was grateful for her ability to see in the dark and not trip over any of the suits of armor or other decorations that dotted the hallway. Finally, she found what she was looking for.

                She climbed the steps carefully, trying to avoid making too much noise, and pushed open the door at the top that opened upwards onto the roof. She stepped out. The air was clean, fresh with fallen snow. She breathed deeply. After so much time on Krypton, it seemed paradoxical to have both snow and an abundance of oxygen. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and stepped barefoot into the snow. She picked her way over to the edge of the roof, choosing one at random, hoping it was facing east, and swept the ledge clean of the powdery, soft snow. She sat down, her legs dangling over the side. It was cold, but not nearly as cold as it had been in the Outlands, and with the blanket, Rey was comfortable. She craned her neck to look at the sky. The stars looked like ice, frozen in place. Constellations formed as she watched and she wondered if it would have been possible to see Rao, Krypton’s sun, from here. Time and space were strange things. Light from stars long dead still reached Earth, but Krypton’s sun was invisible. How long had it been? How long has the planet been gone? She pulled the blanket tighter around her body as tears flowed down her cheeks. She never got a chance to tell them goodbye, never got to thank them. Adam. Kem. Seg. Lyta. Nyssa. All gone. She turned her gaze away from the stars and stared out over the white-coated trees.

                Absently, she noticed that her feet where cold and her toes were almost numb. She pulled them up to sit cross-legged on the ledge, tucking her feet into the warmth of the blanket. She turned her thoughts away from Krypton, toward Earth. She wasn’t sure which one she called ‘home’ any more, but she knew the person she loved most, the person who would always be home no matter where he was in the universe.

                But the thinking about Lex meant also thinking about the secret she was still keeping from him. The words he had written on that list flashed in her mind: “How did Rey get those letters to me from Krypton?” Her stomach knotted with guilt. Lex had forgiven her, mostly, for keeping it from him that she was able to travel between worlds, across time. She didn’t think he’d forgive her for this. She sighed and watched her breath cloud the air in front of her before being swept away by the wind.

                Lex woke up with the eerie feeling that something was wrong. He glanced around his bedroom, but could neither hear or see anything out of place. Rey. He threw his covers aside, suddenly consumed with the need to make sure she was okay. He padded barefoot to her room and was surprised to find the door already wide open. The moonlight was just enough that he could see her empty bed, missing its blanket. The sight did nothing to calm his racing heart. Had she disappeared again? What if he never got her back this time?

                He raced room to room, searching for her and calling her name. There was no answer. By the time he checked the whole mansion, he was panting and the sun was nearly rising. He ruthlessly pushed down his panic and tried to figure out where Rey would go if she hadn’t been taken by some magic back to Krypton. The roof. Of course. He should have checked there first.

                He pushed open the door and stepped out onto the roof, shivering at the cold. There was a human shaped lump sitting on the eastern ledge, covered head to toe in a blanket. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. She was still here.

                “Rey?” he called softly, stepping into the now calf-deep snow. The snow had stopped falling hours ago, leaving the sky clear and black, like diamonds spilled on silk. The stars were just starting to fade with the first rays of the sun climbing over the horizon.

                Rey didn’t answer him, so he brushed a spot clear next to her and sat down, wincing at the frozen stone against his ass. His pajamas did little to protect him from the bite of winter. Wordlessly, Rey extended an arm and pulled him beneath the blanket, into her warmth. He shivered again.

                “I’ve missed sunrises so much.” He looked over and saw tears in her eyes. She was watching the sunrise like it was the last she’d ever see, or perhaps like it was the first.

                Lex said nothing, just put his arm around her back under the blanket and turned his eyes to watch the day begin with her.  


End file.
